Maryland abolishes death penalty.

[FireIceTalon]

Perhaps they are not misconceptions. Still, in the midst of the French Revolution, a band of Marxists who temporarily for a few month wrest control does not seem to be good conditions for measures, nor present a stellar record for Marxist success. Their is no evidence to suggest these people were immune to corruption either.

For oppression to exist, there has to be at least two classes involved - one that is dominate and another that is subordinate, along with a state to protect and legitimize the domination of the ruling class. A single class cannot oppress itself, and the Paris Commune consisted of people who were in the same class. This isn't to say that other problems such as outside capitalist forces wouldn't have been a problem, but this is an entirely different problem being corrupted by a Vanguard.

Whether we exchange labor for fiat money, or labor for goods directly; if there is an opportunity to get more by doing less, people will attempt that course. When you can measure things, like a ton of coal shoveled, fine.

We have the free-rider problem NOW, and its because of how capitalism works. If me and you work at the same place, we get paid the same wage by our boss regardless of how hard we work. You could work a million times harder than me, and at the end of the day you still get paid the same as I do. There is no incentive to work hard under capitalism because you don't reap the benefits of your own labor. And generally, workers aren't going to rat one another out and say "so and so isnt doing his job or pulling his weight", because 1.) this is a difficult thing to prove in the current circumstances, and 2.) there is little incentive for the person making the complaint to do so. Capitalism relies on the myth that if one just works hard enough they will get ahead, but its just that: a myth. Sure, every now and then you get one person who was in the right place at the right time, knew the right people/connections, or maybe, once in a blue moon, hard work paid off. But because most people do not, they get ahead by being born into the right (privileged) class. The rationale of bourgeois thought is that most poor people are lazy and unmotivated and are in the circumstances they are in because of their own decisions, which is also a myth. The poor are demonized constantly, yet it is they who do almost all the work in society, while the capitalists do diddly squat. What capitalism doesn't tell you, is that the odds are SO stacked against you, that you probably will not get ahead even if you do work hard. So yea, I'm going to do as little work as I can, since I'm forced into doing some crappy job that I don't enjoy (but im forced to because my survival depends on it) for paltry wages, since capitalists own the means to production and want to pay me as little as possible (regardless of how hard I work). It is at a point now where they dont even want to pay workers enough that WILL keep them alive, and when the government steps in says "no no", they capitalists cry out "socialism!!" This is how bad it has become man, its pretty depressing really.

But, most labor that is done now (in the information age) is very subjective. How do you value labor, comparing a person who checks groceries to perhaps a person to clerks a photo store? How would you value a web designer, as opposed to a software programmer? Is there a rate of exchange of labor for food? Or, do you just feed everyone, clothe everyone, house everyone, and then subject them to whatever labor needs to be done? All these things are overly complicated without a capitalist framework, and deny the individual reasonable freedoms, such as pursuing their own interests. What if I don't like farming, or shoveling coal, even though I may be very good at it? The problems that arose in implementing Marxism were that there is little to no framework. It expects everyone to embrace a selfless mindset, when in fact we are inherently self-centered creatures. For many people it takes great effort, and often a level of maturity to commit selfless acts.

Again, these are problems of capitalism, not socialism. It is under capitalism where we are "forced to work shitty jobs that we dont like for bum paychecks" (as Ray Liota once said) that we go spend in a week (usually on bills) and we repeat the process until stress finally catches up with us, we get heart disease or cancer cause of said stress and all the chemical crap that they put in food nowadays (another product of capitalism) and then we accumulate more stress because we face death or financial ruin cause of the cost of healthcare. I know this statement sounds bleak, but its what generally happens! In socialism people will be able to pursue what THEY want to do, because they are no longer forced to sell their labor to some parasitic boss as they do now. So long as you have the capability to do what it is that you want to do, you would be able to. Under capitalism, this is NOT the case - you have to take what you can get to survive. Of course, there would still be "shitty" jobs that would have to be done in socialism, like janitorial work, but there are two major differences - first, such jobs under a CAPITALIST system are greatly devalued and in socialism people would actually receive the benefits of their labor. Basically such jobs are only crappy because the way capitalism works MAKES them crappy. Such tasks would be far more appreciated and workers wouldn't be dehumanized as they currently are. Right now, we look down upon waiters/waitresses, clerks, fast food workers, and janitors as if they are scum and their job has no merit. These are human beings, yet they are treated like animals. As far as solving the problem of people not wanting to do less desirable tasks, there are a number of solutions to this. One could be job rotation within the community where people compromise. In this way people wouldn't be locked into doing the same job every single day as they are now. The value of a product or service is generally measured by the time on average it would take for a capable person to produce something. In capitalism, we assign random, subjective values to goods that bear little if any relationship to the value of the labor it took to create them (commodity fetishism). It's basically the epitome of the shallowness of peoples view of their relationship to the products they are duped into believing have some intrinsic value....this is a result of the alienation that capitalism produces. Indeed, it does take great effort for many people to participate in unselfish acts, but that is due to the predominant bourgeois culture that we live under, which values competition, selfishness, and individualism. Lastly, it is a misconception that Marxists rely on philanthropy for socialism to be able to work. Philanthropy equates to charity, and is thus a product of capitalism. We do not want charity because charity implies that classes still exist. We want worker-self determination, and nothing less.

Marx failed. He failed because there is no vision for how a Marxist society will function. Mostly, it fails because it depends on the illiterati to understand what Marx wrote. Most people in my college courses read Marx enough to pass the tests, and write a paper on it. They never really got it. Maybe you do, but that makes you really rare. And, rarer still is that you are a "believer".

There is no such thing as a "Marxist" society. In fact, the whole point of Marxism is to create a society so that we don't have to be Marxists anymore. So long as capitalism exists, Marxism remains very much relevant. If socialism prevails, Marxism will become obsolete. And even if that wasn't the case, there was no vision for how a capitalist society would function either, when feudalism was the predominant mode of production in the world. Capitalism was simply the organic result that was birthed out of feudal societies destruction, and it gave rise to a new set of institutions, political systems, culture, and way of thought that reflected it. In feudal society, not many were able to imagine the full-scale markets and massive industrial development that would follow. If anything Marx did a spectacular job at explaining the laws of motion in capitalism, and by doing this he was able to make many accurate predictions of what it entailed in the future. This doesn't make him a prophet - a prophet is someone who makes a random prediction on a whim without any use of scientific analysis to come to their conclusions. There was no subjective ulterior motive for Marx - he was fascinated with capitalism and wanted to discover its economic laws and how they work, and he did a mighty fine job. Therefore, I'm not a "believer", cause that would imply Marxism is some sort of religion or believes in some spiritual or higher power. However, such a belief requires and presupposes a belief in the supernatural. Marxism has no such metaphysical component, it is simply a mode of analysis for understanding, objectively, the capitalist system.

Marx wasn't the first person to propose a level of selfless communal sacrifice. The apostles shared a common belief that the world as they knew it was soon ending, and so they would "shed their earthly bonds" and store their treasures in their heavenly kingdom. What plagues modern religion and Marxism is its need to convince the adherent to toss away your worldly goods and individualism and follow a new path. Before Christ, there was Chuang Tzu, who said "Do not race after riches, do not risk your life for success, or you will let slip the Heaven within you." Or, Lao Tzu, who said "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

Again this comparison of Marxism to religions is just silly. Religions do indeed need convincing and mysticism to convince their followers that their particular doctrine is the right way of life. Marxism doesn't need mystification to legitimize itself, because it is a materialist philosophy that distinguishes between 'appearance' and 'essence' in political economy. There is no such distinction in religions, which is what makes them idealist (and in many ways utopian) in nature, as opposed to providing a scientific or materialist interpretation of how the world objectively works. For example, Dialectical Materialism does a much better job at explaining the social relations that we live under, as well as the development of human history, in a realistic and scientific way, than the Christian philosophy of sin being inherent to our nature can ever hope to.

Also, in common. Once Stalin, and the Catholic church gained enough power, participation was no longer optional. They implemented it by forced coercion, or death. I think we'd agree this is a mistake.

And most Marxists would have told you so before Stalin ever even came to power. Many orthodox Marxists, like Rosa Luxemburg, understood the dangers of Bolshevism early in the Russian Revolution. This is why we reject 'Great man theories' of history. You can hardly blame Marx or Marxism for the actions of people like Stalin, and doing so is subscribing to the Great man Theory of History. When I hear people say "Marx was responsible for the death of millions because of his ideals!!!", this is just windbaggery at its finest. It is an emotive opinion that has no rational or objective argument. Even attributing atrocities entirely to someone like Stalin isnt really useful, because it provides no material explanation or understanding of HOW or WHY Stalin was able to come to power to begin with. Besides, that is giving Stalin too much credit, hehe.

Finally, Marx was entrenched with industrialism, which he saw as a good thing which created stuff that workers wanted, stuff like shoes, and clothing. But, Marx and Capitalists share a zeal which is wasting our natural resources, polluting and poisoning our planet, and quickly making the world unlivable. Again, selfish people destroy the commons, whether it is under Capitalist, or Marxists, there is little focus on environmental concerns.

This is definitely a misconception, Marxists and capitalists have NOTHING in common when it comes to perceptions of environmental issues. If you go to revleft.com, there are plenty of leftists there of all stripes that critique capitalism from an environmental standpoint. Capitalism is extremely wasteful, because the goal of the system is to maximize profits, which results in an overabundance or surplus of goods (and yet most of the populace cant even afford to buy many of the products they produce). Right now, we are forced to produce products we don't give two shits about, and produce a certain number that will return a profit for the boss. In socialism, workers will determine what is produced, and how much of it. If there is a need or want of something, it will be made. When you see people fighting over the latest iPhone release on Black Friday, that is a form of commodity fetishism - people being duped into believing these products have some inherent value and that they need it. Commodities are the basic cell of capitalism, and it requires a huge production of them for it to work. It is completely indifferent to the amount of natural resources it uses or how destructive it is on the planet. Profits. At the expense of all else.

In summary then, a) no workable framework,

Not true. Marxism is the most objective, stupendous and logical system of analysis for understanding the conditions in which we live - and for providing the tools that will outline an alternative system upon capitalism's demise (nor does it claim that socialism is inevitable, just that is is possible and ultimately desirable). We don't use Marxism to predict how socialism will work, just as Enlightenment philosophers could not predict exactly how capitalism would function. Nor SHOULD it be used in such a way. There are way too many intertwining factors to predict the future, but by understanding the past and the present, we can say which futures are possible and not possible. For example, we won't see feudalism as the predominant mode of production within society again.

b) people like to own stuff,

And yet so few own so much, and so many own so little in a system that professes to create the greatest amount of goods for the greatest amount of people. Go figure.

c) coercion is bad, d)

Not according to capitalists and the state apparatus that protects them Of course, when THEY get coerced, different story. Although admittedly, capitalism does rely a bit less on coercion and more on mystification than other systems of oppression.

illiterate people don't read or understand Marx

And why are they illiterate to begin with (hint: it has something to do with capitalism ).

e) bad for the planet

Yes, capitalism is very bad for the planet (and for peoples health).

Is there such a thing as "Zombie Marxists"?

Never heard this term before, but I think zombie movies are a good analogy of the alienation we experience living under capitalism