Unemployment, and so on

[FireIceTalon]

"Marxism is outdated at best". Wrong. As long as there is class struggle, poverty, social injustice, and a capitalistic war machine, Marxist theory WILL be relevant and discussed. This is a fact, I dont see how its even up for debate. Dialectical Materialism, like it or not, is a legitimate philosophy that deserves attention and consideration.

(You declare your opinion as fact quite often. I'm not sure that word means what you think it does.)

I am more than happy to discuss Marxism. I am also more than happy to discuss the divine right of kings. But simply because something is discussed, doesn't mean we should be taking it seriously as a political program. There is a substantial group interested in Theocracy as a mode of governance. Should we spend our days taking seriously their belief that the power of Christ (or, Allah, or whatever deity) will solve our social ills? I think not.

Dialectical materialism is Marxism's worst mistake, the part that turns a vague but plausible analysis of history and social conditions into a pseudoscience. With a century and a half of new social science, archaeology, anthropology, economics, and history, we know far more than Marx did. His view of the past, while sweeping and interesting for its time, is wrong in all sorts of ways. Class is a remarkably poor predictor of historical change, and what little we do see, is surprisingly unrelated to the objective relationship to the means of production. The history of society is, by and large, not the history of class struggle. Societies do not progress through neat stages, and even if they did, Marx's view is Eurocentric to the extreme. Other cultures do not share European organizational principles, or European social norms; Marxist historians must therefore either abandon or compromise the framework, or shoehorn everything into an outdated model. History did not happen the way he said it did, and if he can't even manage predicting the past, what chance does he have of the future?

But I'll tell you what. Let us keep the status quo intact for the sake of proving me wrong. Lets stay on the same course we currently are, and keep making the corporations more powerful, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and start up as many wars on so-called terrorism as we can. And continue to keep hoping and praying for change to come. When humanity is done wiping itself out in the process, and the environment is all but wrecked, I can sit back, laugh, and say "told you so" from the grave. I just hope the elites know that eventually, they will run out of proletariat labor to maximize utility off of after we are all thrown away like a bunch of inkless ball point pens, and put in the ground. That assembly line conveyor belt will stop eventually though, and they will join us soon enough. Guess it matters not, we all gotta go one day anyway. Cheers.

No, I'll tell you what. Let's not bother discussing actual ideas or evidence. Instead, let's cackle maniacally about how those who disagree with us are leading the world to an inevitable apocalypse, and fantasize about ourselves laughing ironically from beyond the grave.

That's much better.

-Jester

Yea, I completely disagree.

If class struggle, or the struggle between those with power and those without hasn't been the central theme of our history, then WHAT HAS been? The struggle of those with power to retain it over those without it is the source of almost all conflict in history. I do not see how this can be denied. And the relationship between power is almost always between classes, whether its kings and aristocrats, lords and serfs, masters and slaves, and capitalists and workers...sure, there are other social divisions in society such as cultures, religion, race and ethnicity, but these sweep across the much larger spectrum of class as I see it. Many of these things are used to justify the condition of those on the lower rungs of society. It works the same on the international level too: colonialism and imperialism are products of capitalism. Powerful nations exploit the plant resources and labor of weaker ones.

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Simply waving vaguely in the direction of a "better" world that will be achieved by overturning this one is exactly the kind of woolly thinking that's caused so much damage in the past.

Which was my impression too. Taking us to a precipice, and encouraging "jump" still leaves the landing, and organizing things in that new place for the survivors. I don't have any issues with our form of government, or the structure of our society (e.g. the role of capitalism, employment, and the rights of ownership). I have some issues with details of how the government has intruded/colluded giving favor to some (the special interests) over others (the people).

Power corrupts and is misused under all forms of government. My observation and grief is that it is the nature of many in positions of power to "Lord" over us, and that some people know what's better for us. Just give me some, or most, or all of your money/effort and I will direct you on the best way to apply it. And, then the corollary... You (consumers) are too naive or stupid to understand what you are doing when you engage in transaction or contracts with corporations, and so we need to protect you from your own ignorance. Certainly there needs to be a balance of some protections from the most egregious of offenses against the most vulnerable of consumers.

But, in the cases of student loans for example... Are they vulnerable or too naive? Is it unethical for the government to offer students a loan to pay for their education? Should we just do away with student loans, and let those students choose something else to do with their lives?

Or... Should the government just put a cap on the price per credit they will subsidize?

Or, they could stop letting corporations outsource jobs to maximize profits, that way the jobs stay here and students will have more incentive to take out a loan that will have more assurance they will be able to pay it back, since there would be many more jobs and careers available. In general, I hate student loans and I think they are a ponzi-scheme, but since we will never have a free education system sadly, they are probably a necessity for most. But when you outsource all the jobs to China so the corporations can exploit the pennies-on-the-dollar slave labor over there to increase their profit margin, and at the same time take away all the jobs here, it does not bode well. The price for an education is sadly probably not worth the return anymore. Not that I think an education should solely be to equip and prepare graduates for job, the original purpose of education is to learn. But it isn't the 50's anymore. Having a degree now is a requirement now to even move up at Mcdonalds. Its become a really fucked up catch-22 situation. I'm in the middle of my education right now, and hope to have my B.A. in Political Science sometime in 2013. I'm scared shitless right now about the job market and where this economy is going, and if me and my girlfriend will be able to afford to have children (and we aren't getting any younger, she's 35 right now, I'm 33) in time before she passes childbearing age, cause right now we arent even close to being ready. Not to mention the effect the evils of capitalism have had on other people I hold dear. All this corporate welfare is having a much larger impact on peoples lives than you and Jester would like to think. Yes, this is partly why I am an raging, unapologetic Marxist. My anger toward the system is growing and my patience is reaching paper-thin levels, and as Im sure you are well aware, I'm not alone. Disgust and contempt is turning into rage. When you take peoples jobs, retirement savings, foreclose their homes, give them student loans so they can get a job at Wal-Mart selling products for minimum wage just to pay the interest that were made by child labor slaves in China, cut their pay if they DO keep their job and not give them a raise in 6 years to match the rise in cost of living expenses. Then you add insult to injury and bailout the corporate and banker scum that was responsible for it all, instead of inditing them for fraud and treason...yes...you turn normal, hard-working law abiding citizens into dangerous radicals. And I make no fucking apologies about it. Shit, now I need an excedrin with some decaf coffee or something.