Forum Post: Are we Marxists?
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 4, 2011, 4:48 p.m. EST by tg19453
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I was called this today in a negative way. Yet I agree with much of Marxism. Should we embrace it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
"Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority who own the means of production; the bourgeoisie, and the vast majority of the population who produce goods and services; the proletariat. Taking the idea that social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes within society who are under contradiction against each other, the Marxist analysis leads to the conclusion that capitalism oppresses the proletariat, the inevitable result being a proletarian revolution."
"Capitalism according to Marxist theory can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. A socialist economy would not base production on the accumulation of capital, but would instead base production and economic activity on the criteria of satisfying human needs - that is, production would be carried out directly for use."
No we should not embrace Marxism, we should embrace honest capitalism. The main message in my opinion should be to rid our politics of corporation influence and corruption. If this group embraces Marxism we are giving up our system of Government which is good as long as our leaders are working for the good of its citizens instead of greed.
Just a thought - use of Marxist language and thought tends to create barriers and raise objections which may not be helpful to OWS - folks have their own critiques of existing systems based on their personal experiences and struggles and trying to adopt and adapt modern age thought systems to post-modern issues seems regressive...your thoughts?
I understand where you're coming from. Jargon of any sort is a put off.
However, it really is the case that the Marxist tradition as a whole is quite simply the most comprehensive study of capitalism since its origins, down to the present moment.
I really don't think that "personal experiences"--however important they are--can substitute for a systematic, long-standing study of something as complicated as global capitalism. What actions this entails going forward is surely left up to a debate on tactics and strategy. But let's not disavow one of the best intellectual resources we have for understanding the current predicament.
No, I'm an American, not a Marxist.
Ok, first off. These quotes are just bringing up negative connotations and stereotypes about capitalism. Capitalism is just a system of economics and does not directly cause "cutting social benefits" or "pursuing military aggression". Capitalism is simply economics based competition. Our country is not entirely broken and is doing a lot of things right so I think the idea of completely switching up our economic system is just preposterous. Where capitalism does go wrong is when state and federal governments have decided to protect the corporation over the people (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). Protests should have started right after that court decision.
We need to get corporate spending from fueling an overly publicized, drawn out, and reality show-esque political system. Political officials should be elected directly from the people over a fair, popular vote. Capitalism has made us all happy in the past and it can still in the future. Check out the Daily Show interview with Jennifer Granholm. That woman remedies our failing economy better than anyone I've heard.
You probably mean that capitalism is simply a competition-based economic system. Certainly people living in a capitalist society are compelled to compete against one another, though to what extent firms compete is debatable. Regardless, hasn't it ever occurred to you that there is something twisted and perverse about holding up competition between individuals as the ultimate social value? I don't want to compete...it just sounds like a dumb idea.
karl marx said himself that he is not a marxist when he got asked about it because there were marxists at that time already, not just 150 years later. what you should do is not be a marxist but read marx work about capitalism, "the capital", the general mode of commodity production. there are so many answers in there you just dont want to miss. learn what money is, learn what a wage is and what a commodity is, learn what prices are and a profit, all the stuff that you meet in your life that qualifies as "economy", it is the foundations of this very system you live in written down at its very beginning. while hard to understand on your own there are many people that have made the effort to understand it and may help you finding more easy access.
now all this praising of science aside: doesnt it make you at least a little curious when you see on wikipedia some explanations about economy phenomena and then you scroll down and see a part called "marxists argue.." arent you curious why the world knowledge is divided like that? arent you tired to hear stuff like "go learn where money comes from" when you dispute the rich and the poor?
"The ruling class, in ruling the material force of society, is simultaneously the ruling intellectual force of society"
friedrich engels:
Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker. Consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives.
karl marx's capital is the means to understand capitalism to its deepest roots. you will therefor inevitably get radicalized because radical means root. when you see the root of the problem you see the solution.
Or you get turned off by the prolix language and the lengthy argument and tune it out...have read Marx and Engels and while they were fine modernist critics of capitalism, they don't translate as well into post-modernist world views in my opinion...the critique is fine but not necessarily relevant or current
well he didnt write about some current stuff like credit derivates because it has not been made up back then, but apart from that i dont think you can find anything more profound on what is the current state of things in capitalist economies. the value form is the dominant principle in this society and has not been made more clear since then. i agree the language is horrible thats why i suggest to get involved with contemporary explainers of marx like this guy: http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/ or this is some short text summarizing the important stuff: http://ruthlesscriticism.com/Marxwealth.htm
I take your point....will do some reading...
No. We all have varying views & political leanings. Granted, there are a number of marxists and marxist views in the movement. That's perfectly fine, and a good thing in my opinion.
Personally, I'm just a plain old liberal/progressive, on pretty much every issue but one: the 2nd amendment. I support our right to bear arms, adamantly. Other than that, I side with progressives & liberals on just about every issue. Does that make me a marxist? In some ways, perhaps. Am I true marxist/communist/socialist? No. Not even close, yet still closer to that than any conservative or libertarian would be, technically.
A few points:
There are some things wrong with this definition of "Marxism." To begin with, there are multiple Marxisms (including really bad, discredited versions like Stalinism and Maoism). Marx himself decried the freezing of his thought into an ideology, declaring late in his life: "I'm not a Marxist, myself."
The issue in Marx's thought regarding capitalism is not "oppression" but exploitation. Capitalism is based on waged work (aka "wage labor," "wage slavery") whereby in exchange for a wage, workers give up control of the surplus value they produce over and above the cost of that wage (and of the materials they use) every day. The surplus value taken from workers in this way is the source of the capitalists' profit and of their social, political, and economic power. The end result is a society that accumulates wealth at one end and poverty at the other.
In the past, workers have driven capitalism forward by extracting concessions on wages (including the "social wage" of things like health care and unemployment pay), compelling capitalism to make labor more productive and the state to make provision for working-class welfare. In fact, an average hour of labor in advanced capitalist societies is now so productive that it's possible to have a "jobless recovery" like today's in which businesses can in the short term remain highly profitable with far fewer workers. Marx predicted this state of affairs, which he said would lead to increasingly violent crises--since when the working-class majority can't pay for goods and services, profit eventually dries up.
There is no such thing as a "socialist economy," because when workers and their class allies take collective control of the means of life (industry, communications, and so forth) and work cooperatively for the good of all, markets are superseded. The computer/internet revolution can be used to provide the real-time feedback from consumers to producers that is the only actual social function of markets. And with all of us working together to meet our needs in a cooperative way, we can eliminate vast amounts of stupid and destructive toil and enter a new and harmonious relationship with nonhuman nature, which Marx called our "external body."
The only organization of any size in the US currently working openly for this goal and with this analysis is the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, "Wobblies"), an authentic workers' organization that has now been around for about a century. But when the Occupation Movement declares that cooperation is necessary for human survival and that a democracy cannot survive the dominance of economic power, it calls implicitly for a cooperative commonwealth such as Marx (and the socialist workers he learned from in the 1840s) proposed.
One more thing: right-wing trolls, no actual socialist, including Marx, wants to take away your personal property. Get over yourselves. Your stuff is not the point. The system of wage labor is.
There are some really wonderful lectures by a man that teaches in CUNY. David Harvey. Below is an animation to go along with one of his lectures that really makes since.. I consider myself a capitalist having owned businesses. But I do merit to what Harvey teaches. The thing that David Harvey who is a Marxist, Ron Paul a capitalist & Noam Chomsky a socialist all agree on is that corporatism is wrong.
http://vimeo.com/13300662
Yeah, you are a Marxist. Show me an example of where it ever, ever worked and people were happy with it.
Please recall that Marxism as a tradition is first and foremost the most systematic critique and study of capitalism ever undertaken. If you want to understand capitalism, its contradictions, crises--and yes, even how it has contributed to certain advances--you would do very well to begin with Marx.
The funniest thing about the question raised here is the presumption that socialism is even an alternative to fascism. They are two sides of the same coin.
There is only one fundamental issue: freedom or slavery. If you hand power to government to run everything, you end up enslaved. It should be obvious that pie-throwing between parties is designed to get you to ignore that fact. If you support either, you are helping to sell out the children of this nation.
You can have a Fascist, Socialist society and you can have a Democratic, Capitalist society. But, Socialism is not Fascism and Capitalism is not Democracy.
Socialism and Capitalism are economic structures. Fascism and Democracy are political systems.
Sorry, Fascism is marriage between corporations and state. Read what Hitler and Mussolini themselves wrote if you doubt this.
And any government that presumes to have the power to take wealth and regulate its generation is the economic system. The government guns say so. Even 'democracy', which might better be called Regulatory Democracy, dominates the economy wherever it is tried.
The U.S. today is a fascist system advertised with communist slogans.
Yes you are Marxists and yes that is bad. Wake up and become contributing members of society and people will take you seriously.
Marxism's most basic premise is the violation of the right to own property.
When you come to get mine, you'll get violent resistance. OK?
And if you believe that stuff, it's yourself that ends up enslaved. The men with the guns that you hand power to don't care about you. They will buttrape you and throw you away like a used tissue.
Yes you are Marxists and yes that is bad. Wake up and become contributing members of society and people will take you seriously.
yes most of us here are Marxists = communists. It sound nice, but in practice it does not address basic humane nature to be competitive and ends up in eventual failure because of corruption and lack of rewards for people that try to excel.
It sounded great to me when I was a kid, but after years of observation and learning, I know Marxism sucks. Note that marxist/communist revolutions have claimed more lives than any other struggles in history.
Marxists do not equal communists. Not to start a fight, but if you actually look at the "communist" revolutions, you'll find a majority were only loosely based in Marxist (usually Leninist) thought. None actually carried out a communist revolution, but only implemented a vanguard-run socialist state. The result is a system that looks similar to our own.
John Lennon's "Revolution" said it well. "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V00EFQxU7eg
Interesting thought, but we need to find a concrete goal before adopting an ideology, especially such a politically charged one. Calling yourself a Marxist implies certain things historically, and I think we need this movement to stay, for the moment, disassociated from past revolutions.
That would literally translate into the overall destruction of our current system to be replaced by a system that would not be widely accepted by either the elitists or conservatives. It would be a fanatical response to a situation that requires tact over radical reform.
We are not Marxist. We are idealists who see potential in recovery for an adequate government that has gone astray.
This isn't a Marxist movement, so I don't think the movement should embrace Marxism officially. Although if you agree with Marxist thought, no reason you shouldn't embrace it personally.
I personally don't think that the 99% will ever define themselves by a single ideology. In fact, that would be a drag...there is a kind of proud strength in diversity. I think the movement is people deciding that if we don't fight for our future now, the future will be decided for us very soon. And maybe that is something the 99% can get behind.
I really don't get this. I'm the same age as most of the young people out there with signs but I feel like an outsider looking in. A movement has to make a point. Fight WHAT for our future? The economy is rough right now, we're all upset--fine. But you need an idea! An agenda! Otherwise, the only difference between the angry, disaffected Americans we already knew about and the ones in the OWL is that OWL is blocking traffic.
People can have different beliefs and still achieve common goals. I think there are some general shared goals of: Getting money out of politics, Having proper watchdogs on corporations and especially wall street, Making sure that the wealthy pay their fair share before we destroy all of our social infrastructure ( that last one could just be me ;) More importantly, perhaps: it's getting people to talk about these things again. Politics is not a spectator sport, though that's exactly what we've all allowed it to become.
I think its about raising consciousness of the issues all over America, rather than having an ideology. Folks all across the nation are bombed with the Fox News (and CBS and NBC) version of economic events. OWS is causing a different conversation to take place, raising different issues that are on FOX News. I mean, picture some guys in Indiana or somewheres saying "So whats up with this Wall Street protest?" And one guy says "blah blah socialists..." and maybe the other guy, who's buddy lost a job when the town factory went to Vietnam or somewhere so they could "lower labor costs" maybe he's thinking ..."Well MAYBE they're socialists, but you know, things are kinda weird..."
And we got one. And its one by one, believe me.
We've GOT to get people thinking and talking about the issues. Then the next step is to educate them on the issues. And then we've got to trust the people to make the right call.
But if we're quiet, if we don't choose to make the conversation - and make it loud enough that it will be heard over all the din of Fox News and Monday Night Football, then we'll be left with the guys who ARE fighting for their futures - the guys who only know exploitation; control; selfishness. And without the 99% behind us, those guys could very well win.
Strength in numbers. Educate. Get the conversation going. That's the fight. The more people who hear of us, think about the issues. That's what is meant by raising consciousness.
Yes! I honestly do not like the idea of pigeonholing ourselves into one line of thought. That would just fragment us. We need to focus on concrete solutions and policy. No labels necessary.
Agreed, the 99% are not a single group.