Opinion of Karl Marx

[All Along The Watchtower]

It could be argued he is the most evil person ever born. I personally agree with that argument.

No

Did not his philosophy destroy the human spirit? Did it not force individuals into a collective? Did it not put forward the nauseous theories of "state ownership" and the "Labor Theory of Capital?" How many were murdered on the alter of reaching his utopian system? Marx murdered the human spirit and his system degrades the rights of man. He is the ultimate of all evil.

Yeah, things were just so fine and dandy, with the benevolent business owners and their employees living peacefully together in harmony before that evil trickster Karl Marx came along.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, things were just so fine and dandy, with the benevolent business owners and their employees living peacefully together in harmony before that evil trickster Karl Marx came along.

Indeed, indeed. Take this for example:

Q. No break?

A. No break. Then I removed to coal mines after that. There we had low seams also, very low seams. There we had no rails to draw upon, that is, tramways laid like rails now for our tubs, or corves, or whirlies as we call them, to run upon. We had leather belts for our shoulders. One was before and another behind, and the wheels were cutting the pavements or floor - we called it pavement - and we had to keep dragging the coal with these ropes over our shoulders, and sometimes round the middle with a chain between our legs. Then there was always another pushing behind with his head.

Q. That work was done with children?

A. That work was done by boys, such as I was, from 10 or 11 down to eight, and I have known them as low as seven years old. In the mines at that time the state of ventilation was frightful.

From evidence given to the Royal Commission on Trades Unions in 1868.

[traininthedistance]

Was a better historian than an economist.

Quite so. Though, in fairness, it isn't as though other economists of the time covered themselves in intellectual glory...

Yes but since when have economists ever covered themselves in intellectual glory?

Eh, I think even you might have good things to say about John Kenneth Galbraith.  Unless you're even more jaded than you let on, of course.

Well, if you think I'm jaded given my posts, I think you should be glad that I never post drunk.

The language is perhaps somewhat imprecise, but surely you get the gist of what I'm trying to say, no?

I will say that it would be lovely to have a window on your actual hopes and dreams (I'd say views but I know where that would probably lead me) once in a while, if they even exist anymore beyond the meta-world of poking at people's delusions. Starting with, because why not, what do you think of Galbraith anyway?

[TNF]

Yeah, things were just so fine and dandy, with the benevolent business owners and their employees living peacefully together in harmony before that evil trickster Karl Marx came along.

Indeed, indeed. Take this for example:

Q. No break?

A. No break. Then I removed to coal mines after that. There we had low seams also, very low seams. There we had no rails to draw upon, that is, tramways laid like rails now for our tubs, or corves, or whirlies as we call them, to run upon. We had leather belts for our shoulders. One was before and another behind, and the wheels were cutting the pavements or floor - we called it pavement - and we had to keep dragging the coal with these ropes over our shoulders, and sometimes round the middle with a chain between our legs. Then there was always another pushing behind with his head.

Q. That work was done with children?

A. That work was done by boys, such as I was, from 10 or 11 down to eight, and I have known them as low as seven years old. In the mines at that time the state of ventilation was frightful.

From evidence given to the Royal Commission on Trades Unions in 1868.

but muh freedumb to hire kids

[All Along The Watchtower]

Also, this may be a good time for a reminder that the State of Nature is an ideological construct, not an actual anthropological description of history. So when one says or implies things like "the human spirit is one of individual freedom," an acute ideological bias is present already.

(Not that bias or ideology is something that we can necessarily escape regarding politics, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we are being objective, detached observers here).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Was a better historian than an economist.

Quite so. Though, in fairness, it isn't as though other economists of the time covered themselves in intellectual glory...

Yes but since when have economists ever covered themselves in intellectual glory?

Eh, I think even you might have good things to say about John Kenneth Galbraith.  Unless you're even more jaded than you let on, of course.

Well, if you think I'm jaded given my posts, I think you should be glad that I never post drunk.

The language is perhaps somewhat imprecise, but surely you get the gist of what I'm trying to say, no?

I will say that it would be lovely to have a window on your actual hopes and dreams (I'd say views but I know where that would probably lead me) once in a while, if they even exist anymore beyond the meta-world of poking at people's delusions. Starting with, because why not, what do you think of Galbraith anyway?

Hmmm.... Well I like a lot of his quotes, especially on economic forecasting and the nature of modern 'conservatism'. They are good one liners. I don't know much of his economics though. I've got the impression however that economists nowadays think of him more as a literary figure who dabbled in economics rather than an economist. What I've read of him, I've enjoyed though, which is unusual for economists and he didn't live in a world of models and abstractions so.... I approve, I think, at least for now

[traininthedistance]

Hmmm.... Well I like a lot of his quotes, especially on economic forecasting and the nature of modern 'conservatism'. They are good one liners. I don't know much of his economics though. I've got the impression however that economists nowadays think of him more as a literary figure who dabbled in economics rather than an economist. What I've read of him, I've enjoyed though, which is unusual for economists and he didn't live in a world of models and abstractions so.... I approve, I think, at least for now

Thanks.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's a bit rich to talk about Marx murdering the human spirit or something when his lifetime began in the age of Peterloo and ended in that of Gilt.

[politicallefty]

FF. It's unfortunate that so many seem to conflate his views with that of 20th century authoritarian communism.

[Redalgo]

A founding father of sociology, the most influential of all modern philosophers, and FF in the extreme.

He is overrated in radical politics, however, distracting from subsequent advances in socialist thought.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

His ideology failed spectacularly, so HP due to Communism never arising in a world without him.

[MATTROSE94]

Neutral. Karl Marx wasn't responsible for the tyrannical governments that used his ideas to their personal advantage, he was just a dude.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Did not his philosophy destroy the human spirit? Did it not force individuals into a collective? Did it not put forward the nauseous theories of "state ownership" and the "Labor Theory of Capital?" How many were murdered on the alter of reaching his utopian system? Marx murdered the human spirit and his system degrades the rights of man. He is the ultimate of all evil.

The... er... ironic thing about this hysterical screed of yours is that many of your charges are pretty much the same ones that Marx laid at the door of the thing he called Capitalism.