Michael Z
Mike
YaBB God
Posts: 4,288
Political Matrix
E: -5.88, S: -4.72
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« on: December 29, 2003, 01:32:07 PM » |
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« edited: December 29, 2003, 01:54:40 PM by Michael Zeigermann »
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RP is right. A lot of people quickly jump to conclusions over Marx without ever having read any of his work. He may have inspired one of the most damaging ideologies in history, but he did have great insight into how society is structured. Furthermore, as RP mentioned, we should bear in mind that Marx was looking at 19th century feudal capitalism, a social system which was totally unjust and rotten to the core. I give him some credit for ending feudalism in Europe (but only some).
As far as communism itself is concerned, I tend to agree with Jravnsbo and Mr Fresh. It looks good on paper (and it does work in small-scale environments, such as a kibbutz), but it's simply impractical on a national scale. Though having said that, if the USSR had been shaped completely according to Marx and Engels's ideas, things may have turned out differently. Many either ignore or are simply unaware of the fact that Marx wanted a communist society to be shaped along democratic lines, with an elected council of workers (instead of one unelected leader, witness the USSR) voted for on a regular basis. But then, as Mr Fresh said, human ego simply got in the way. Also, as with capitalism we have never actually seen the ideology itself implemented, but rather many different interpretations and conceptions of it (Keynesianism, neo-liberalism, the welfare state, etc in Capitalism; Maoism, Stalinism, Bolshevism in Communism). You can't directly blame Marx, or Das Kapital, for the bastard offspring of his ideas that was Stalinism (which was basically a mixture of communism and despotism). But that's enough ism-ing for now.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating communism. Its failures are carved in history. But it's important to know the facts before passing judgement, instead of blindly accepting the notion that communism is bad mmkay.
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