Serious topic - ask the expert: Marxism

[TomViolenz]

It's just gotten to a point, where I stopped finding it funny at all.
It's just maddening to write an angry/happy/insightfull/whatever post, and then to see it reduced to a spelling mistake!
I would probably find it just as annoying if my native language were English.

With great self restraint, I will resist the maddening urge to correct this most recent post.

Thank you!

[TomViolenz]

I can only talk from my own subjective life experience, but my feeling was that the puppet government thing feels a little overblown. (Not saying that it was not tightly controlled in some instances, but the same could be said for West Germany and the US)
Also regarding the choice of system after the war, you shouldn't forget that before the war up to 17% were voting for the communists(KPD) directly and up to 30% for the SPD (social democrats, but the system change to socialism was still an important part of there platform till the 50s). So there was actually wide spread willingness to change to Socialism at the time.

Yes, there was in all countries, but Moscow was bitterly opposed to socialism.

Also many of the early developments where admistered by locals that were very convinced of Socialism. This only changed slowly when people realized how little say they had in the developments. But by that time, some of the niceties of Socialism were already showing, so now it turned to many normal people being open to it, while the idealists were frustrated and often became the systems strongest opponents.
(This is obviously only one side of the coin, but the other side gets talked about so often that I feel it is needed to mention this to keep some balance)
The problem with Socialism in my mind is, that it only works if you have close to a 100% of idealists, but that number never, in no system ever rises above 10%. But with 90% of the people looking mostly only out for themselves and their extended family, this can't work.

The problem with socialism is that you can't establish it when you are dictated to by Moscow, which is anti-socialist. In 1953 the East German workers rose up in favour of socialism, and the Russians responded with tanks.

I have no idea where you would get this from!
In '53 the workers were demonstrating because they had effectivly cut their wages. Later some cries for freedom and democracy arose as well. But they had most certainly rather set their eyes on the west, as where they wanted to have the system move to, than any kind of Socialism.
Everything else is just wishful thinking on your part!

[re:dream]

It's just gotten to a point, where I stopped finding it funny at all.
It's just maddening to write an angry/happy/insightfull/whatever post, and then to see it reduced to a spelling mistake!
I would probably find it just as annoying if my native language were English.

With great self restraint, I will resist the maddening urge to correct this most recent post.

[re:dream]

I completely disagree... Trotskyists don't have a monopoly on Marx, any more than Wahabists have a monopoly on interpreting the true meaning of the words of the prophet. That is sectarian. And this sectarian tradition (in my view) is one of the reasons for the historical marginalization of Trotskyist thought, and has really undermined attempts to think about which bits of Marx's thought are relevant to us today, and which are not.

Very true. I've met many Marxists—far smarter than Funken—who recognise Trotsky as the mental incompetent that he is. So as Finn says, Marxism is far greater than Trotskism, which is essentially to Marxism what the Amish are to to Christianity.

The Amish are actually rather a nice lot

And they don't infiltrate other groups and try to impose their views on them by taking over their leadership

A lot of interesting political movements have been ruined do to 'entryist' strategies by Troskyist who take over the organization and then impose their narrow minded views

[re:dream]

market-based Marxism. Which is essentially libertarianism.

Well, now you are doing to markets and libertarianism what Funken is doing to socialism

[Galt]

I completely disagree... Trotskyists don't have a monopoly on Marx, any more than Wahabists have a monopoly on interpreting the true meaning of the words of the prophet. That is sectarian. And this sectarian tradition (in my view) is one of the reasons for the historical marginalization of Trotskyist thought, and has really undermined attempts to think about which bits of Marx's thought are relevant to us today, and which are not.

Very true. I've met many Marxists—far smarter than Funken—who recognise Trotsky as the mental incompetent that he is. So as Finn says, Marxism is far greater than Trotskism, which is essentially to Marxism what the Amish are to to Christianity.

The Amish are actually rather a nice lot

And they don't infiltrate other groups and try to impose their views on them by taking over their leadership

A lot of interesting political movements have been ruined do to 'entryist' strategies by Troskyist who take over the organization and then impose their narrow minded views

I meant no disrespect to the Amish. I choose them for my comparison, because like Trotskyists, they are (1) fairly obscure and (2) stuck in the past. I would also argue, given the photos that Funken sometimes shares with us, that they are also snappier dressers than Trotskyists. ^^

[Galt]

market-based Marxism. Which is essentially libertarianism.

Well, now you are doing to markets and libertarianism what Funken is doing to socialism

Well what I just said was insanely vague, so I'm sure I can dig my way out of this

[re:dream]

I actually want to pose the question to Funken: How do you think a Socialist economy should be structured, so that it can adapt to the needs of the people?

I want to note that Funken has not answered your question.

Basically, it seems that the litmus test is the intentions of Iosef Dzhugashvili. Anything that was part of his plans could not possibly be socialist.

The actual practical arrangements of how society and economy should be structured ... those seem to be beneath Funken's concern.

[re:dream]

Differentiating between a murderer and his victims is not splitting hairs.
.

The murderer and the victim shared 95% of their theoretical and intellectual DNA. From where I stand, what they have in common is much more important and significant than where they differed.

[Galt]

If I kill you to silence your views, because they are a threat to me, am I just splitting hairs?

This is like saying Protestants are not Christians because they were killed by Catholics.

I wish this forum had some proper Marxists I could play with. The one we have seems to be broken.

[re:dream]

Forget wikipedia for this sort of thing. You won't even grasp it easily reading Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg alone.

Ooh, are we establshing credentials now? Ooh goody!

Having read them (and also fair bits of Kautsky, lashings of Gramsci, Cabral, Poulantzas, Lukacs, Korsch and rather a lot of Althusser)I do feel somewhat qualified to comment. ( I had a misspent youth, I should have spent my time getting laid and learning electric guitar). So I feel somewhat qualified to comment

And Wikipedia is a good source for identifying the commonly accepted meanings of terms.

The way in which WP differentiates between 'socialism' and 'communism' is a pretty reliable summary of the way in which the terms are most often used in mainstream political discourse. And since this is a fairly popular forum, comprised by a range of different political opinion. So trying to use language in a way that would be accessible to most people seems to be a useful thing.

[TomViolenz]

I actually want to pose the question to Funken: How do you think a Socialist economy should be structured, so that it can adapt to the needs of the people?

I want to note that Funken has not answered your question.

Basically, it seems that the litmus test is the intentions of Iosef Dzhugashvili. Anything that was part of his plans could not possibly be socialist.

The actual practical arrangements of how society and economy should be structured ... those seem to be beneath Funken's concern.

Oh, I'm sure he is just preparing a very well thought out response! Seeing as this is the biggest problem with Socialism and he therefore had to spend all of his years as a Marxist to work on this. This is like the grand unifying theory in physics - it takes time!

You wouldn't want to imply that Funken is arguing in bad faith, would you...

[re:dream]

He's not arguing in bad faith.

He is arguing a faith.

Politics turned into religious discourse. The whole truth contained in a sacred scripture, which is to be protected from critical interrogation.

Present-day events always filtered through the lens of an earlier sacred history.

An endless concern with tiny little sectarian splits and murderous feuds.

[re:dream]

If I kill you to silence your views, because they are a threat to me, am I just splitting hairs?

This is like saying Protestants are not Christians because they were killed by Catholics.

I wish this forum had some proper Marxists I could play with. The one we have seems to be broken.

Sorry, I got other fish to fry.

[TomViolenz]

He's not arguing in bad faith.

He is arguing a faith.

Well he obviously thinks: Why not both...