the boogeyman of Marxism/communism...

[Peter Kropotkin]

In my recent posting with IC, I noticed that
he is using Marxism as a boogeyman....
that communism/marxism is always wrong
is a constant with this crowd... and yet,
he has vast misunderstandings with communism/marxism...

first of all, there is no one version of communism..
there are several versions of it...and Marxism is
just another version.... the anti-communism crowd
always says that "communism failed" and yet, they
fail to identify which version failed....

let us get this out of the way first:
the fact is that Marxism as defined by Karl Marx, has
never been tried... we have Leninism and Stalinism
and Maoism.. but not Marxism...
the problem with these versions of communism is
the fact that they aren't Marxism.. they are dictatorships
disguised as communism... Mao did it, as it Stalin, as did,
Castro, as did Pol Pot...

gotta leave..

back later....

Kropotkin

[phyllo]

Notice that you never identify a specific version when you bitch about capitalism.

[Immanuel Can]

In my recent posting with IC, I noticed that
he is using Marxism as a boogeyman....

A bogeyman is, by definition non-existent.

Are you going to argue that Marxism is non-existent?

first of all, there is no one version of communism..
there are several versions of it...and Marxism is
just another version.... the anti-communism crowd
always says that "communism failed" and yet, they
fail to identify which version failed....

They all did. Disastrously. Chinese, Russian, North Korean, Romanian, Albanian, German, Cuban, Venezuelan, Zimbabwean...there's not one success story in the entire pack.

So what does it matter what form of absolute Marxist disaster we are talking about?

let us get this out of the way first:
the fact is that Marxism as defined by Karl Marx, has
never been tried...

Let's get this out of the way.

You think the Chinese got it wrong. So did all the Russians. The Cambodians, the Vietcong, the Congolese...all of them. Which means you think that none of them was any good at realizing the promises of Communism. All those millions and millions of people were just too stupid to get it right. That's what you want us to suppose.

But now, you want us to suppose that P. Krackpotkin knows better. If HE had been the commissar, the chairman, the chief waver of the red flag, then Communism would have worked. And how do we know that's what he thinks? Because Krackpotkin says he knows what "real" Communism is, and he knows it clearly enough to say for certain there's never been any "real" Communism. Only HIS kind would be the "real" kind.

And it wouldn't kill millions upon millions, like the others have, and it wouldn't collapse the national economy, and there wouldn't be purges and gulags and re-education camps, because Krackpotkin knows better than to let those things happen, and would have control of the situation.

That's what you suppose we'll believe?

Maybe not.

[promethean75]

Do a thread on some of the positive aspects of capitalism, keter. A long one please.

[Peter Kropotkin]

not to get into the story, but I'm back....
as I was gearing up to do, there are many different,
distinct types of Marxism/communism....

Libertarian communism (anarcho-communism and council communism)
Marxist communism (left communism, Libertarian Marxism, Maoism,
Leninism, Marxism -Leninism, and Trotskyism)
non-Marxist communism and religious communism, (Christian communism,
Islamic communism, Jewish communism)
and there is an argument out there that the very first economic
system, the hunter-gatherer system was communistic...
and that system lasted, depending on who is doing the counting,
lasted over a million years...and given the nature of the society
at the time, just small tribes following the food chain, never
settling in one place for any length of time...it makes sense for
it to be communistic.. which is to say, that goods and products
and hunted animals, all went into a community pot, where it
was available to all, at all times...that is communism in a nutshell...

to make a blanket statement that there is but one communism
and it has failed is to simply ignore all the many variations
of communism... and clearly not all the possible communisms have
been tried, so they can't all be considered to have failed...

and what is really interesting to me is this, what was the point
of this creation of communism? in other words, why this sudden
historical interest in communism? there were religious groups during
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that practiced communism...
and that was due to the idea that communism was
a Christian idea practice by Jesus and his disciples...
we also have the Anabaptist movement during the 16 century
German peasant war.. so the idea was already in place,
but why during the 19th century, there rose a great deal of interest
in communism/socialism....I would submit that this revival of
communism comes from the terrible world created by capitalism
in which millions of people were suddenly forced to move and
get jobs in factories leading to widespread poverty and despair
all over Europe but especially in England.. as the English
were the leading vanguard of capitalism in Europe at the time...

so, ask yourself, why did communism rise just as capitalism was
becoming the dominant economic system in the world?
to be blunt, the idea behind communism fits far better
what it means to be human than capitalism does...

but that must come tomorrow, as I am exhausted after my
day....

Kropotkin

[Alexis Jacobi]

Not to get into the story, but I'm back.... as I was gearing up to do, there are many different, distinct types of Marxism/communism....

Libertarian communism (anarcho-communism and council communism) Marxist communism (left communism, Libertarian Marxism, Maoism, Leninism, Marxism -Leninism, and Trotskyism) non-Marxist communism and religious communism, (Christian communism, Islamic communism, Jewish communism) and there is an argument out there that the very first economic system, the hunter-gatherer system was communistic...

You are confusing very different things. I think I understand why you do it though. You value the ethic of a community of people that shares among members, or that observes regulations that involve mutual care, perhaps like the Kibbutzim (?), or as you say among small Christian, Jewish or Islamic communities that share a religious outlook and practice and have an ethic of sharing trials and tribulations, childcare, community building, working on community structures, etc.

But those have nothing to do with Marxism-based Communism that is adopted by a State or that takes over a State through a coup or a putsch, or perhaps like in Chile through a reasonably democratic process.

[The case of Venezuela (I was working in Caracas when Hugo Chavez attempted a coup) is distinct as well. The class that managed the state was so corrupt, and so hated, that when Chavez became popular he could garner a large percentage of the popular vote. However, more or less instantaneously everyone in his administration, and certainly his family, took over the corruption industry.

Chavez was still widely loved, and everyone is aware of his loudmouthed antics [Mr Danger is his reference to George Bush Jr!], and though he did initiate community welfare projects, mostly in Caracas, most except the very poor classes opposed him, but all the while the corruption continued on, and the country was driven into the ground.]

There is a book you should check out: Guide to the Complete Latin American Idiot.

The essays defend, from liberal positions, that an important part of the political and intellectual sectors are rooted in a Third-Worldism and nationalistic mentality, if not socialist, that lead them to a constant "patriotic" victim playing that presents the Western world and capitalism as the main culprit of the poor countries woes. And, furthermore, that by holding positions of social influence aid statespeople and intellectuals allow the spread of populism and the stagnation in underdevelopment in Latin American countries. The authors argue that the "idiot", as coined by essay, does not see the Latin American problems in the state structure and believes that it is possible to achieve well-being by repeating the same process that leads to the growth of the state, the accumulation of power by a caudillo and the impoverishment of the society. As examples of said mentality, the book cites Peronism in Argentina and Castrismo in Cuba.

The book, consisting of thirteen chapters, is prologued by Mario Vargas Llosa and is presented by the authors as an antithesis to the book The Open Veins of Latin America, published in 1971 by Eduardo Galeano.

Mendoza, Montaner and Vargas Llosa published a sequel in 2007 titled The Return of the Idiot (Spanish: El regreso del idiota).

[Note: The epigraph to Galeano's The Open Veins of Latin America read "We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity” and Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Álvaro Vargas Llosa played off the notion of *stupid* with their deliberately provocative title.]

You come across, I hope you don't mind me being so direct, like a total North American idiot (please take idiot as ironic and playful, as Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Álvaro Vargas Llosa used the term). You have ZERO experience in the real world of wealth-building, you have ZERO understanding of the conditions and needs of the people who live in the poor nations that have adopted Communism and Socialism, and got fucked, so it is obvious (to me anyway) that you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

But you do seem to stimulate reactions. I guess that is a positive, right?

[Harbal]

You come across, I hope you don't mind me being so direct, like a total North American idiot

I'm sure he won't mind any more than the rest of us you have insulted and then told not to take it personally.

[Iwannaplato]

In my recent posting with IC, I noticed that
he is using Marxism as a boogeyman....
that communism/marxism is always wrong
is a constant with this crowd... and yet,
he has vast misunderstandings with communism/marxism...

first of all, there is no one version of communism..
there are several versions of it...and Marxism is
just another version.... the anti-communism crowd
always says that "communism failed" and yet, they
fail to identify which version failed....

let us get this out of the way first:
the fact is that Marxism as defined by Karl Marx, has
never been tried... we have Leninism and Stalinism
and Maoism.. but not Marxism...
the problem with these versions of communism is
the fact that they aren't Marxism.. they are dictatorships
disguised as communism... Mao did it, as it Stalin, as did,
Castro, as did Pol Pot...

gotta leave..

back later....

Kropotkin

We can't let Marx off the hook so easily. Yes, he wasn't aiming at a dictatorship, however he thought the dictatorship of the proletariat would wither away and was a necessary intermediary step between capitalism and communism.

So this seems pretty naive on his part. Dictatorships tend not to wither. If they go, they go via takeover, generally with violence. And they tend not to go to communism. They have tended to go to nicer or worse autocracies, sometimes to capitalism, sometimes to rearrangements of feudal type systems. How could Marx have such a fantastic faith in this transition? I can't see how history would lead one to think this was the case?
The fact that Marx's communism 'has never been tried' is something he contributed to via his combination of certainty and naivete.

I think his analysis of problems was often spot on, but his solution is very problematic and we cannot simply blame people for not doing what he wanted. If he'd been more humble - for example, by saying he was not sure at all how a just society could form but he'd advocate for certain ways of organizing, for example, or cautionary ' be careful about dictatorships, we must think very carefully about how to move from where we are to where we need to go' or something along those lines, we could perhaps give him much more of a pass.

[Harbal]

A bogeyman is, by definition non-existent.

Are you going to argue that Marxism is non-existent?

I'm guessing it is the threat of Marxism, that those seeking to influence voting habits like to throw around to scare people into not voting Democrat, that he is suggesting is based on fiction. In which case he is obviously correct.

[Iwannaplato]

Notice that you never identify a specific version when you bitch about capitalism.

This is a very good point if true that he doesn't do this.
Binary is the watchword with PK from what I've seen.

Capitalism with central banks, or not, or what kind of banking system - fiat? etc.
Capitalism with campaign financing via corporations and little weak individual citizens, or not, or what protections are put in place to elminate oligharcy.
Capitalism where corporate charters are actually revoked for criminal activity, or not. This was the original intent.
Capitalism with what taxation system.
Capitalism with independent government oversight of industry, or not.
What kinds of intellectual property rights, unions, freedoms of press, patent processes?
And so on to all kinds of issues that change what capitalism is.

And I see this on both sides of the capitalism/communism issue online. It's a two option choice and people snarl across the divide. Which is a negative tendency PK heartily exacerbates.

I think it's a good idea to nuance both sides and also keep open to forms that do not neatly fit in either camp.

I mean, China is now not clearly communist or capitalist. (not saying it's a good set up, but it seems to me some people are primarily just happy to be 'right', so having two teams and them being on the right one is the most important thing)

[Alexis Jacobi]

You come across, I hope you don't mind me being so direct, like a total North American idiot

I'm sure he won't mind any more than the rest of us you have insulted and then told not to take it personally.

That's so wonderful! Let's hope so. None of this should be taken at a personal level.

[Immanuel Can]

A bogeyman is, by definition non-existent.

Are you going to argue that Marxism is non-existent?

I'm guessing it is the threat of Marxism, that those seeking to influence voting habits like to throw around to scare people into not voting Democrat, that he is suggesting is based on fiction. In which case he is obviously correct.

Well, let's not guess. Let's hear him out.

[Harbal]

A bogeyman is, by definition non-existent.

Are you going to argue that Marxism is non-existent?

I'm guessing it is the threat of Marxism, that those seeking to influence voting habits like to throw around to scare people into not voting Democrat, that he is suggesting is based on fiction. In which case he is obviously correct.

Well, let's not guess. Let's hear him out.

There's somewhere I need to be, but you stay by all means.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm guessing it is the threat of Marxism, that those seeking to influence voting habits like to throw around to scare people into not voting Democrat, that he is suggesting is based on fiction. In which case he is obviously correct.

Well, let's not guess. Let's hear him out.

There's somewhere I need to be, but you stay by all means.

Will do.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Did Kropotkin die again?!?

Such antics!