thefugitivesaint

Marx did not tolerate converting his multi-dimensional social theory into an ossified "ism" during his lifetime, preferring to emphasize its flexible character and evolving nature. It was Engels who, after Marx's death, converted Marx's lively thought into a political doctrine called Marxism, at the same time stressing that Marxism was a science. These interpretations of Marx's ideas tended to reduce their dynamic complexity to simplistic formulas that made vulgarization virtually inevitable.

It is a shame that Lady Anoteros provides a perfect example of how a specific philosophical attempt to understand and change the world is misunderstood and distorted. Marx's ideas are not dogma and treating them as such a deadly mistake.

Your defense here, Lady, of your position is not going well. Maybe you should try to approach Marx a bit more critically as a pupil willing to learn, to challenge and not as a devotee to the alter of 'Marxism.'

But, what the hell do i know? (I do know that Stalin was a monster and so is anyone else who can allow what he allowed under the guise of so-called "historical necessity". Fuck that shit...as the french would say.)

-theSaint

[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: thefugitivesaint ]</p>

Celsus

Agricola Senior wrote:
Which I disagree with (the first part of the statement), but anyway...

Lady Anoteros replied:
Try reading The Revenge of History by Alex Callinicos, who is a Marxist. Just about all the Marxists are trying to distance themselves as much as possible from Stalin, yet here we have you trying to root for Stalin. Amazing.

If you think forced collectivisation, ethnic cleansing, political oppression, and mass murder does not make one a monster, then you need to get your head checked.

lpetrich

Which ones?

And what, precisely, is "dialectical materialism"? Please explain it to all us nonbelievers in "diamat".

Dr. Retard

Don't feed the loons.

(Especially when poor ol' long-suffering Amos is still hurting for conversation).

Primal

Marxism is outdated and I would say at some level pseudoscience. It is definately not a science.

As far as a theory of history goes, it is rather weak and in some schools almost untestable.

Frank Sulloway proved that birth order and sibling dynamics are almost 1000 times more predictive of revolutionary personalities and/or openness to innovation then class. This contradicts the Marxist idea of the lower classes being the revolutionary one.

Jared Diamond proves that it is largely enviroment; not economic structure, which determines the fates of societies.

Marxism though I would not call it mystical is somewhat bankrupt as it is based on speculation and superfluous assumptions instead of hard evidence,data and testing.

An example of how ripe rivisionism is in marxism is to look at two(damn near 3) maxist predictions which have failed:

1) Quality of life in capitalist countries would decrease; workers would work more,get paid less and have fewer rights. Child labor laws, 8 hour work days, and such disconfirmed this rpediction. Though there are still absuses; things got better, not worse.

Marxists countered by bringing up third world countries which they cannot prove are worse off, saying that capitalism changed to imperialism and they were right...in a way.


2) Socialist revolutions would be started in areas with heavy industry.

This Marxist prediction was likewise disproven as the semi-backwards Russia and China were the ones that turned Marxist; not the heavily industrialized germany,england or the US.

3) The appearance of fascism also to a degree discredits Marxism, as capitalism was supposed to give birth to socialism...not fascism. Trotsky made more rivisions to assimilate this fact though.

All in all I agree there are corporate abuses and industrialized nations need much reform. However the Marxist and Neo-Marxist theories are bankrupt in terms of philosophy and historical theories and hence not the best guides for mankind.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]</p>

Primal

BTW, libertarian political theory is just as bankrupt imo. Most radical political ideologies are, and loyalty to them can rival religion in many ways.

Celsus

Nitpick time.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why dialectical materialism of Marxist philosophy is a pseudoscience? I've given a brief summation <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000451" target="_blank">here</a>. I am genuinely interested in a critique of Marx's dialectic.

[quote]<strong>Frank Sulloway proved that birth order and sibling dynamics are almost 1000 times more predictive of revolutionary personalities and/or openness to innovation then class. This contradicts the Marxist idea of the lower classes being the revolutionary one. </strong>[quote]

Misrepresentation. Firstly, it does not contradict the Leninist/Trotskyist idea of the vanguard. Secondly, the intelligentsia will always have a role as instigators. The working classes are generally perceived as the actors. Thirdly, many Marxist writings (esp. Freire and Gramsci) deal with the failure of revolutionising the working classes. They are aware of this problem with their theory.

He analysed only pre-modern societies, and the influence of the environment, while pervasive, is not the be-all and end-all. In Guns, Germs and Steel, one of his examples was of 16th century China as an important counterpoint of how political maneuvering could have had long-term (damaging in his opinion) effects.

Perhaps you'd like to give some recent examples of lack of evidence in recent Marxist analyses?

&lt;snip three failed predictions&gt;

You are correct, but Marxists have been working on their theory, and plenty have been theorising that peasant economies were more likely to revolt than capitalist ones since. Marxism did not end with Marx.

NB: I am not a Marxist, but it seems many people are quite rushed in misinterpreting his ideas. Most of what he wrote was a critique of capitalism (with some polemics against anarchists, social democrats, etc.). The positive aspects of his ideas were carried out by the likes of Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Lukacs etc.

Gurdur

More nitpicking.
Marx was essentially the person who invented sociology.
Now there is not also the fact that "many people are quite rushed in misinterpreting his ideas", but the divsion between descriptive economic and sociological theory, and [b]prescriptive[/i] theory is often confused holus-bolus when talking about Marx,
i.e.
the difference between describing things as they are, explaining why things were as they were, and making predictions about how things will be,

and

how things should be, and
whether <a href="http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jam/17922.htm" target="_blank">you should sup up your beer and collect your fags,
There's a row going on down near Slough,...</a>

As for the positive aspects of Marxism, I'm none too sure Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, or Lukacš are good examples.
Lenin, even given the situation he was facing, was a decided bit more authoritarian than he needed to be. People forget that the assassination attempt on his life that eventually ended in his fatal illness was carried out by a Left Social woman, the Left Social Revolutionaries up to that point having actualy shared power with Lenin's Bolsheviks across the country (till they got profoundly worried by Lenin's brutal authoritarianism, then got wiped out).
Trotsky, although hailed as a revloutionary's revolutionary by many, could be just as authoritarian; ask the Kropopotkin revolutionaries for example.

Gramsci and Lukaš were theoreticians, and while Gramsci had the odd good idea or two, nothing really earth-shaking seems to have come from either of them. Much of their work consisted of having common-sense ideas, then saying, "OK, now let's get this idea somehnow into an Official Marxist framework, so the comrades can accept it".

When we talk concentration of capital, when we talk about monopolisation of marketplaces, we're using the ideas and observations Marx brought to fruition.

When we talk about what we should be doing, perhaps Terry Pratchett is a much better guide.

BTW, on the practical side, Engels was always far more accesible than Marx, and did a much better job of explanantion.
Let's hear it for Engels ! Born not more than 30 Km away from where I live; the Engels family home (in Wuppertal) is now a museum, and a good one.

Not only were Stalin's books ghost-written for him (BTW, in the late 1970's the Indian Communist Party bucked all trends by bringing them all out in publication again), but Stalin was most likely an Okhrana stool pigeon whno found himself by accident in a high position on the winning side, and spent the rest of his life having anyone who might have some idea of his past murdered.
He was, in essence, simply a small-time brutal crook who got to the top by accident, and stayed there by wholesale murder.

Celsus

Hi Gurdur,

So we finally disagree on something. Or do we? What I meant by "positive" aspects of Marxism was more like "as opposed to polemics and criticisms of others". (Not that Trotsky and Lenin did not use polemics, but rather they had more to say about the nature of Marxist societies) So I think we still agree with each other.

Joel

P.S. Oh yes, I finally noticed something: I absolutely hate Engels.

Gurdur

Hiya ! well, you're the one who wanted to find something to disagree on, and let's face it, our sub-conversation is the best part of this thread.

Eh, must find disagreements. Will do, take some time.

Why ?
If you don't mind answering seriously, why ?

Marx tended to be a sponging bastard who cheated on his wife Jenny) by getting his chambermaid preggers and then abandoning the poor servant; Engels seems to have been a very decent human who ran around the place cleaning up after Marx's little domestic messes, who financially supported Marx and Marx's family through thick and thin, who often gave money to desperate individual workers, and had a fair wage and fair living conditions instituted in his family factory estate, saving many a worker and workers' families from starvation in the then-desperate times in Wuppertal, where life expectancy for a male worker was 35, for Darwin's sakes, so bad were the general famines, unemployment, underpayment and working conditions of that time and place.
So why ?

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>