Karl Marx Genius Of The Modern World

by Brokeback Watchtower 94 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  What is the absurd ideology you refer to here? The idea of humans being born with a "blank slate"?

  Yes
  
  
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  Ruby456

  Brokeback The human brain isn,t hard wired for exploitation. This sort of thing is so much a part of exploitive ideology. If it was hard wired in that way we would be extinct and everything else would be too
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  karter

  Winston Churchill summed it up....."Socialism is the philosophy of failure,The creed of ignorance,And the gospel of envy,It's inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery".

  Karter.
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  TD

  For those whole marvel at the "genius" of Karl Marx, I highly recommend Alexander Dolgun's Story: An American in the Gulag.

  He describes in excruciating detail not only the inherent flaws of communism, but how and why it empowered monsters like Stalin
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  DwainBowman

  I met a Russian man when I live in LA back in 99. He was telling me about his job, in a factory that built motors for car's. He said that they might put out any where from 10 to 200, motors a week, but they were supposed to be building 1,000 a week. He said it just didn't really matter, how much or little they worked, the pay was the same. The was nothing in it for having done even a good job, much less doing a Really Great job!!!!! The pay was always the same, the food was always in short supply, and not very good! He said housing was a joke, and getting some thing like a TV could take month's or even years, and that they were just crap!

  We talked a number of time, and I wish I had written down what all he said!!

  Dwain
  
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  cofty

  Thanks for the book suggestion TD.

  DwainBowan - I was an apprentice in the UK nationalised telecoms industry when I was young. Diligence was frowned on. More than half the working day was non-productive spent in cafes or long tea breaks in smoke-filled cafeterias playing cards or in the pub playing pool.

  It was almost impossible to fire anybody. Absolutely no motivation or ambition and the quality of service provided for the customer - who had nowhere else to go - was dreadful.
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  Ray Frankz

  Ok, Marx is Russell

  Rutherford is Lenin?

  Knorr is Stalin?
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  Brokeback Watchtower

  Hey nice discussion! Anyway I'm always trying to examine these things but clearly not the depth of some of our posters so all I can say is: " hey nice discussion".

  I think the internet with its easy access to all sorts of information has definitely been at play here with all these informed comments. Cheers to free thinkers not stuck in rut!(imposed by government indoctrination thru the public school system to extreme biased in their favor toward the subject of how to run economies.. Self imposed dumbing down of general population to keep them in power and capitalist happy from more business interest/prospects and the plushy life of living off the land at profit$$$ for them and their wealth.
  
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  MeanMrMustard

  But it does not take away from the fact that at the start of this village's development all the labour was internal to the village. The use of non-village workers only came with success. But yes, you're basically correct in saying that the village became a corporation.
  And whether, a business enterprise is owned by one individual, or by a company or by the government is not particularly important. What's important is that has the following:
  1. Access to adequate capital.
  2. Skilled management.
  3. Skilled technicians.
  4. Good accounting practise.

  I disagree. The most important factor is not on your list: The members of the town/corporation can make decisions on what to produce because they have prices – prices that come from everywhere else around them. They have prices for their inputs and a good idea of what they can get for their outputs at home and abroad. They are swimming in a sea of market information. This town is just like a large company, giving housing away for their investors as a perk.

  It does work. There is no dispute there. But it works, not because it shares the profits. Rather, it works because this one corporation is functioning as a supplier of goods within a market, and from that market information the town, just like a board of directors, can make decisions on resource usage to gain profits, which is the signal that they are moving resources into higher level goods.

  The point: This little town doesn’t bolster the socialist’s argument. The socialist notes: “there is no private property”. Answer: sure there is. The corporation/town is basically like a private actor.

  It may be noted in this discussion that government ownership was common in the past.

  Why is that important to note?

  Right across Asia there is evidence that governments initiated production facilities. For the reason already stated, that there was insufficient private capital available for the project. Not surprising when you consider that most of the population (say 80% to 90%) was engaged in agriculture. Only the state had the resources to inject capital into some enterprise.

  Not having the needed capital to undertake a venture implies something about undertaking that venture. What is so important about venture XYZ that you have to steal capital from everyone (taxes), pool it, and start the venture? When the government bureaucrats make that decision, how do they really know that more agriculture wouldn’t be the best thing right now? Why not steal money from people and create carrot juicers instead?

  MMM
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  It is indeed very hard to fault the Scandinavian countries, both in their economic development and with their social successes. (Although Norway has been helped immensely by its off-shore oil industry). The example of countries such as Sweden and Denmark tends strongly to suggest that a Mixed Economy works best.

  It is not what you think. Sweden was very open and laissez-faire for about 100 years before the government interventions. You get the best growth, the best standard of living increases with free markets. Take a look at the video below. The Swedish economist jokes in relation to Sweden: ‘How do you get a small fortune? Start out with a big one and make mistakes.’

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gvVPBBDpV8
  

  And this one:
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9WOMQMkMQc
  

  That contrasts with the disastrous attempts in the late 1980s / early 1990s to implement a Free Market Economy in this country. (An experiment that is still often referred to as "Rogernomics", after the then minister of finance, Roger Douglas). During the 1980s, economist Milton Friedman gave a series of rather forceful lectures on TV about the virtues of the "Free Market". After that, wondrous claims were made about what it was going to achieve - and for a few years, many people actually believed it, too!
  However, the reality was quite different; with just one example of many being the "Leaky Homes" debacle.

  Again, this is not what it appears to be. There was a huge government manual that described all the building standards for New Zealand. It was called NZ Standard 3604. It was not the case of deregulation. The author of the source below mentions the creator of the new regulations by name and tends to think he knew nothing about construction. I'm sure he had good intentions though. Everyone followed them because…well, that’s the government’s standard. More government failure being passed off as the market’s fault. Since the new regulations happened around the same time as the deregulation in other things, well, post-hoc ergo propter hoc. Take it from a NZ builder:

  http://pc.blogspot.com/2009/11/leaky-homes-part-1-myth-of-deregulated.html

  MMM