This is what's wrong with the news these days.

[kandrathe]

You'd think that not every issue in this world needs be re-molded into the nail, thus necessitating the Marxist hammer.

That's because any other way of looking at capitalism, outside of a Marxist lens, is one-dimensional at best.

You have a strange definition of one dimensional. I think it is more akin to viewing every issue as an 1800's struggle of the proletariat shedding the yokes of their Capitalist masters.

I see it everyday in my political science classes (I know u think my classes are promoting socialist ideologies and "indoctrinating" us with Marxism - but it is quite the opposite actually: they assume the student accepts a pro-capitalist framework and free market values).

Well, the classroom, and the opinions of students or professors, is pretty far hike from "The Real World" where people work for a living and are responsible for raising families.

I'm not mad about that, and in fact, it is what I expected going in.

Instead, you are dismissive of the sheeple surrounding you, and your superior enlightened attitude is off putting at best. They couldn't possibly be aware of their indoctrination in the free market capitalist society into which they were born. Heaven forbid they ascribe to non-Marxist concepts like owning property, or free choice.

But that doesn't change the fact that Marxism is the most empirical, comprehensive, objective, and most importantly, honest, way of studying the capitalist system and how it works - to date anyways. I don't say that because it is Marx who formulated the theory - cause it could have been anybody.

Maybe a different great man. Or, perhaps due to its perfection, it was divinely inspired.

But the truthisms within it are undeniable, however inconvenient they are to justification of bourgeois hegemony.

Yes, V.I.K.I. Undeniable. I can see now. The Marxists must sometimes protect the society. Even against the will of that misguided society.

Capitalists and right-wingers know this too, which is why they have gone to such great lengths to demonizing Marxism, vulgarizing it, misrepresenting it. They know it is truth, their fear and demonization of it, is confirmation of that - if there was no or little truth in it, they'd have nothing to fear, but very clearly they do

Or, maybe they are correct, and just seek to point out a big steamy pile of crap when they see one lest an unsuspecting political science student step in it and get it all over their post-graduate potential.

RM is a symptom of material conditions though, not a cause (even if he certainly helps to reinforce the status quo). Do you really think if he had never been born, or somehow was removed from having control of many news outlets across the globe, that things would change? I don't see any reason why they would.

You've assumed a false premise, and presented a straw man argument. I've never suggested that removing him would change anything. Yes, it is probable that some other tycoon would fill the gap. What I said was that society acts, when it works correctly, to fix conditions where power is unchecked. Often, in order to get "the people" upset enough to act, they need some hard examples of why they must. So it was in the early 1900's with restraining capitalist monopolies. Do you think those powerful agencies fought against those changes to check their power?

It would be impossible for me for instance, even if I had the financial resources to do so, to start a Marxist news outlet as an alternative to liberal and conservative outlets. Even if I received enough funding to get it going (which in itself would be quite unlikely since corporations ain't gonna sponsor a Marxist ), it is unlikely I would be able to keep it going for any meaningful length of time - as I would most likely be shut down very quickly for the promotion of "radical" or "extremist" views that are against the interests of the entire social order. It would be like trying to promote Christianity or other western values through the media in say Afghanistan - it just ain't gonna happen.

Besides the fact that the very models upon which these organizations are based are anathema to the premises of Marxism. Advertising? Sponsors? Investors? What are you, Capitalists? No, the communist venue of choice is indoctrination at re-education camps.

I tend to agree with The Impossibilists.

So, then, a fringe of the political Marxist fringe. At some point, you become a party of one.

The state... Piecemeal reforms do not advance the cause of socialism, and in fact, they only strengthen the capitalist system most of the time.

In other words, the broken vessel cannot be repaired. You advocate a new vessel, but cannot describe what that looks like. But, you'll know it when you see it. And... it involves a revolution.

Sounds like more Great Man theories to me. But moreover, it's also a contradictory statement anyways, since Sen. Sherman was a bourgeois liberal politician that wanted reform policies to put a "happy face" on capitalism, where as Marx advocated a complete overhaul of the system. Given capitalism's history and the current material conditions, I'd say Mates' comment has been proven wrong, but moreover, it is useless.

Of course. It doesn't support your POV.

... even though it is labor of the working class that produces all of said wealth).

Ok, let us descend into the 1800's model of the Marxian worker mindset. What does labor do without a factory in which to work? What do they make without understanding demands, and supply? Anarchy is not a management strategy that yields an economy.