Is the Democrat Party influenced by Marx?

[patrick1]

Yes and so is the Republican party. He was a rather important theorist after all.

By Christ though, why are so many people who follow politics or political engaged such unreasonable people?  Some people are just so stubbornly and yet blissfully ignorant that it is maddening to read.

I know, they were going crazy in a US senate thread about how democrats aren't influenced by Marx whatsoever and you would have to be a "narrow, ignorant, uninformed, uneducated, stupid" person to think so. 

Don't agree with me, you are the unreasonable and blissfully ignorant type I was referring to.

As fleshed out more above, Marx had a major impact on history so of course he had some influence.  However, you trying to equate the "Democrat" party with Marx is just a boring and cheap attempt at propaganda.   This tripe may suffice with people who couldn't pick Marx out of a police lineup but it shouldn't be meant for consumption among reasonable people.

[Frodo]

Why are you asking?  Are you moving to Thailand? 

[The Mikado]

But seriously, modernity itself is influenced by Marx. Profoundly. (It's also influenced by, for example, Newton, Voltaire, Comte.) If any more profoundly in the case of the Democratic Party than in other cases, only by a trivial amount, relatively speaking.

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

Nice, but you should've said the "spectre of vulgar Marxism" rather than the ghost.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Democrats have influences like John Maynard Keynes, Che Guevara, and Marx.

It's going to be pretty hard to declare a statement the single stupidest thing ever posted on Atlas, but this unquestionably at least makes the top 10.

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

If the Democratic Party was influenced by Marx, why is America's economy so deregulated?

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

But seriously, modernity itself is influenced by Marx. Profoundly. (It's also influenced by, for example, Newton, Voltaire, Comte.) If any more profoundly in the case of the Democratic Party than in other cases, only by a trivial amount, relatively speaking.

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

Nice, but you should've said the "spectre of vulgar Marxism" rather than the ghost.

Yes, my ability to mix metaphors really does damage to the aesthetics of my arguments. I will have to pay more attention in future.

[© Tweed the Younger]

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

presuming you meant 'reverse vulgar Marxism', this was about what I was planning to say, and I was also going to say that, in this sense, Republicans (at least, the brain trust, not the true-believer politicians) are more marxist than Democrats.

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

presuming you meant 'reverse vulgar Marxism', this was about what I was planning to say, and I was also going to say that, in this sense, Republicans (at least, the brain trust, not the true-believer politicians) are more marxist than Democrats.

Uggh... yes. Stupid Typos. Reverse Vulgar Marxisms. And yes I would agree that the GOP is more 'marxist' (even if not Marxist) than the Democrats.

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

Or put it another way (yes, I know this thread should be killed with fire but I actually think this is an interesting topic once put aside the political fluff) Marx is to the study of politics and society what Freud is to the study of the human mind. Both were remarkable genuises in the way they built their intellectual schema yet having built and then made deductions from that schema they came up with ideas that turned out to be horribly wrong. Yet such was the power and influence of their original ideas (and the mutations from their original ideas) that they became fundamental to their subjects, which would be in the modern form unimaginable without them. Even the proclaimed enemies of Marx speak his language and try to refute him using ideas originally conceived by him. Marx, like Freud, is a dead thinker who is still embedded in every crevice of the subjects he touched.

Non-Marxist sociology or Non-Freudian Psychology makes as much sense as Non-Pythagorian geometry really.

[Frodo]

What does any of this have to do with Thailand?  Can we at least try not to get off-topic here?  Clearly the originator of this thread has developed a keen (though unexpected) interest in Thai politics. 

[Vasall des Midas]

lmfao.

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

lmfao.

And this is the best answer, ladies and gentelmen.

/thread

[Vosem]

Yes. Everybody is influenced by Marx, either directly or indirectly (influenced by people influenced by Marx). And some people have a revulsion to Marxism and are influenced by it to do the opposite. Marx has had enough of an impact on history that everybody's thinking is influenced by him.

[Foucaulf]

I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

Yes. Everybody is influenced by Marx, either directly or indirectly (influenced by people influenced by Marx). And some people have a revulsion to Marxism and are influenced by it to do the opposite. Marx has had enough of an impact on history that everybody's thinking is influenced by him.

18th Brumaire:

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts ... appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

This is pretty unrelated to the topic of the thread but communists played a bigger role in the trade union movement that many left-liberals here in the states would like to admit.

[© Tweed the Younger]

This is pretty unrelated to the topic of the thread but communists played a bigger role in the trade union movement that many left-liberals here in the states would like to admit.

such are the benefits of not being a liberal.

Tweed, are you seriously arguing that the continuing cover-up of mass murder and slave labour was a good thing?

could have been, sure.  the great industrial unions of this country That Built the American Middle Class™ were in large part organized by loyal Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s.  if a full light were shone on Stalin by the time of the Moscow Trials the organizers would have been put in jail or blacklisted or lynched.  we may not have had a UAW, United Steelworkers, etc. to speak of.  would that have been good?  no.  life is a complicated, counter-intuitive thing.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

This is pretty unrelated to the topic of the thread but communists played a bigger role in the trade union movement that many left-liberals here in the states would like to admit.

Because for most people, condemnatory normative judgement disrupts the discussion in the moment that any of these terms are mentioned.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I didn't realize Groucho was that big of a thing in Thailand.

[Zioneer]

AmericanNation is not very good at being a troll.

[Governor Maxwell]

Another thing, AN- you should have defined exactly what you meant by 'influenced.'

I think you could say Republicans have influences like Milton Friedman   

If only the Republicans were actually influenced by Milton Friedman...

[Progressive Realist]

The Republican Party is influenced by Ayn Rand, who is objectively more horrible than Marx (who pretty much all Democrats, btw, have wanted nothing to do with since the 1940s) as well as more influential.

[Pacific Justice IBDD]

I believe That the democratic party as of now is influenced by Kennedy, FDR, and Clinton, and I also believe  that the Republicans as of now are influenced by Ronald Reagan

[shua]

The Republican Party is influenced by Ayn Rand, who is objectively more horrible than Marx (who pretty much all Democrats, btw, have wanted nothing to do with since the 1940s) as well as more influential.

Rand's influence for most people isn't in terms of anything she came up with that was particularly unique, and certainly nothing worth comparing to the lasting historical influence of Marxism.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Another thing, AN- you should have defined exactly what you meant by 'influenced.'

I think you could say Republicans have influences like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith, etc. 

Democrats have influences like John Maynard Keynes, Che Guevara, and Marx.   You could make the argument that American democrats are influenced by European socialists(who are influenced by Marx) rather than Marx himself.     

Keynes was arguably more conservative than so classical liberalsz.

The Republican Party is influenced by Ayn Rand, who is objectively more horrible than Marx (who pretty much all Democrats, btw, have wanted nothing to do with since the 1940s) as well as more influential.

Rand's influence for most people isn't in terms of anything she came up with that was particularly unique, and certainly nothing worth comparing to the lasting historical influence of Marxism.

Though, I don't think Ayn Rand was into opposition to abortion, homosexuality or science. Though, outside of cultural issues, she was very Republican. Very pro-ifyouarenotwithusyouareagainstus and very anti-peoplewhocan'ttakecareofthemselves. 

[asexual trans victimologist]

Ayn Rand was actually intensely anti-gay, though I haven't made enough of a study of her to be sure why exactly.