Maryland abolishes death penalty.

[kandrathe]

Meaningless argument, since I can use the same logic for myself, or any other Marxist that lives in the United States or any other given capitalist state. Perhaps it is inconvenient to YOUR belief system that I (or any other given Marxist, before or after me) became disillusioned with capitalism and took a more realistic position? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

If I had to choose, based upon his, and your credentials, I'd say he had more experience and knowledge of your positions.

I don't care if you've read Capital cover to cover multiple times.

Well, I have.

I am interested in the views of other Marxists, and that is why I engage in discussion fairly actively over at the revleft.com forum, which has Marxists, anarchists, and other types of socialists of all stripes. I have no problems with Marxists who want to build on the foundation that Marx and Engels laid down, since as capitalism develops so too, must Marxism (hey, dialectics right there! Woot!). In fact, it SHOULD be encouraged. If otherwise were the case, I would reject every single Marxist who came after Marx and Engels, and I would be wrong for doing so. However, there are certain aspects and tenets that make Marxism what it is as a mode of analysis, and should never be removed or altered. Dialectical Materialism is one of those things, and there is a good reason why the overwhelming majority of Marxists, regardless of their particular tendency, still use it and consider it so central to understanding capitalism.

DM is also useful for proving that night is day, and day is night.

Because we generally agree that anti-dialectics is ultimately an abandonment of Marxism, or is anti-Marxist.

Even though Marx never claimed dialectics was core to his reasoning? Lenin did, of course did claim that DM was core to Marxism. But, then again, Lenin also admitted he never fully understood DM either.

So, you think neo-colonization of third world countries, has nothing to do with developed nations exploiting the resources and markets of 3rd world nations, and that all the wars have nothing to do with expansion and competition of global markets, in the big picture? You think these problems have SOLELY do with the involved institutions and actors, and not the totality of the system which shapes them and their actions?

Did I? Or, is this a strawman?

This is a gross oversimplification. We aren't talking about planting fucking crops or starting a book drive here, where outcomes are much more predictable. We are talking about the change of an entire social order, which is billions of times more complex. We can predict some possible outcomes for capitalism - it will either be destroyed by revolution and replaced with a more progressive and democratic social order, or it will degenerate into some barbaric social-darwinian society or natural catastrophe, since the system cannot ultimately sustain itself. As Marxists, we want to make sure the former happens, and prevent the latter.

Ok. Describe how "a more progressive and democratic social order" works. Who gets trained to be the school teacher? Who toils on the farms? Who gets to be the ballet dancer? How is it decided? How do you prevent shortages, and over-production? How will you prevent the corruption that has plagued every other attempt at a command economy? How are people motivated? How do you prevent "free riders"?