OK. Humungously long answer coming up.
TL;DR? You betcha
Funk N. Furter wrote:
I've noticed some effort on your part to withdraw from trollery so I will address your post. However you have a long way to go and I still classify you as one of the worst on the forum. Even in the above post you are still doing it.
I don't agree that I am trolling. I am interested in debate; I sometimes take provocative positions partly because I am interested in what people would have to say.
From
the fount of all objective knowledge:
a troll (/?tro?l/, /?tr?l/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion
I don't think my posts are particularly off-topic - they usually are germane to whatever a previous poster has said, and they are not done with the intent to provoke or annoy. In fact, when I notice that my posts are causing emotional or abusive responses, I withdraw. I am not a goody two shoes and I can post irritated or sarcastic responses, but when I can see that someone has been hurt or offended by something, I usually apologize.
Usually.
OK, sometimes.
This (post above) is complete rubbish.
OK. That's your view and you are entitled to it. I don't really mind when people disagree with me.
But
why would you say such a thing? What are your reasons for dismissing my views so completely?
Marx wrote about capitalism. His book was called Capital. All three volumes. Capitalism exists.
I have no disagreement with that. Do you agree with me that his work was (among other things) about formulating a critique of capitalism?
He predicted that the working class created by capitalism would soon cease to have any real need for the capitalists, and would try to run the show themselves. His prediction was soon proved correct while he was still alive with the Paris Commune, and soon after in the Russian Revolution.
In Russia a workers' state, albeit a degenerated one after 1923 due to the isolation of the revolution in a backward country, existed as a planned economy.
Again, I have no disagreement with that either. Although I think he also said and did a whole lot of other things; he was much more than a political pundit.
I keep saying that I don't want to try to describe how a socialist economy might operate in detail, precisely because it would be largely imaginary. Were you one of the people who delighted in taking the piss out of me for that very fact? I'm not sure. Confirm or deny if you wish.
I am saying that the test of any political ideology is (among other things) the questions of how it would work in practice.
So, questions from people who want to know how it is going to work are legitimate, and the refusal to answer that question is a cop out. You need to convince people that the alternatives you espouse are realistic. If they ask you how it would work, and then you say, well, I can't answer that because I don't know how it would work, people are just going to laugh.
SImilarly, if you want to assess such a social and political programme, one is entitled to look at the track record. Sure, there were some isolated moments in history where people tried to implement this imagined society. But they did not last. Why did they not last? Is it because they were betrayed? Or is it because they were based on flawed theories and concepts? I think it is probably a mix of the two. These attempts at creating classless societies clearly had enemies - but I think that they also had fatal flaws on the inside. Many of these flaws related to the weakness and vagueness of the thinking around how resources could be efficiently and justly allocated. Which topic has already been done to death elsewhere on this forum.
as for the second point in that post, it is basically childish trollery rather than anything serious. I will not dignify it with a reply.
I have no idea what point you are referring to.
- that Marx tried to formulate a critique of capitalism?
- that he criticized classical economic accounts of the free market?
- that he argued that capitalism produced inequality?
- that I think his argument of why this is so was crude?
- that better and more nuanced versions of his thought have since been advanced by others working in the marxist tradition?
- that other posters in this forum have said that they don't like it when I go on and on and on and on and on?
- that I have been called a troll?
All the above are either honestly expressed opinions, or verifiable facts. The last two points are a direct answer to Galt's invitation to me to say what aspects of Marx's though I find useful. Where am I trolling?
If you can't differentiate between trolling, banter, and serious debate, stay out of all three.
I think I can.
As a general indication, I would say that for the most part my posts thrash about somewhere in the wetlands and marshes that exist between the frolicsome waters of banter, and the dry hinterlands of serious debate. They are made with the hope that they either inform or entertain, or both.
