I completely agree.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:48 pm So, like me, you don't believe in dictatorship of any kind and don't believe bloody revolution is ever a good thing. I do think there are a lot of economic injustices in the world today and that we should speak up when we see them.
I believe that Marx was probably (rightly) outraged at the conditions he witnessed in the factories and ghettos of his day. I also believe he had a point in the labor theory of value--that the profits of capitalism that allow the uber-rich to continue to dominate politically are essentially the unpaid wage of the workers.
That's too simple. It presupposes a fixed class of "workers," who work in "factories," and live in "ghettos." That's Industrial Revolution talk...fine for Marx, maybe; but not at all reflective of the situation today.
And Marx wsa wrong about the labour theory of value. He supposed that all the value of an item or product was a result of the worker. But it never is. It's a combined effect of the actions of all kinds of people...inventors, investors, managers, mechanics, marketers, owners, various middlemen like warehousers and shippers, and so on. Value is a function of the free market, too...people only pay what they want to, what they think is worth paying. And everybody involved in the earlier stages of production has to make his or her slice of the pie out of whatever can actually be sold on that basis.
Marx never foresaw social mobility, free markets, a non-factory economy, the cleaning up of the urban ghettos, technological innovation, world markets, investment banking, multinationals, foreign aid and welfare, and so on. His theories are a blunt, antiquated instrument...somewhat like trying to use a stone axe to fix a watch or a computer.
No, my guess would be not. You don't appear deeply engaged with Marx. And that's a good thing.Would you say I'm a "Marxist"?
You're just a nice guy who wants to see the right kinds of things happen. But whereas you seem drawn to political solutions, to the promises of the collectivists and propagandists, whereas I see the basic solutions as intimately tied to the moral condition of the individuals, and not solvable apart from a personal commitment to the right things.
I think we'd both like to see the same sorts of fairnesses established; we probably only differ over how it's all to be done.