the boogeyman of Marxism/communism...

[Immanuel Can]

...the Soviet Union was not Marxists...

Wait: I'll call them up and tell them. They'll be sooo surprised.

Let's cut to the chase Kropotkin: WHERE has real Marxism existed?

If it hasn't, why hasn't it, and who could make it work?

If it has, which of its many human-rights and economic disasters do you want to own up to?

K: it hasn't been practiced..

Why not? Is it even possible to practice what the Marxists want us to practice?

If it is, why haven't they practiced it yet? There's been plenty of time, plenty of experiments, plenty of people willing...what's their problem?

And who is the person who is capable of saying what "real Marxism" is?

You seem to think it's Peter Kropotkin: for despite the belief of Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Zimbabweans and Venezuelans that they were implementing Marxism, they're all wrong -- so says Koropotkin! So Kropotkin alone must know. And Kropotkin must know what they lacked, and what they could have done to become "genuine" Marxists.

All those millions of stupid, misguided people. All those countries full of fools...most of the developing world, in fact. All of them so, so, so stupid...and Koropotkin alone, among all men, able to realize what "true Marxism" is.

I marvel at your unbelievable hubris. No wonder people die at the hands of despots any time Marxism is tried. The psychology of their dictators is identical to theirs: "I, only I, know what Marxism is. And only when you listen to me, will it come about."

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am not surprised at how badly you miss the point...
read Marx, I have and at no point do we read about
5 year plans, reeducation camps, political pogroms,
(the kulaks of the 1920's) or none of the things that
Lenin or Stalin did...that isn't in Marx...what Stalin
and Lenin did was not in Marx...and why?

Because Marx was, first and foremost, was
an economist... Das Kapital is an economic book..
nothing more.. Marx had very little to do with the
political.. that wasn't his concern, the economic world
was his concern...so to take political concerns that wasn't even
in Marx, is to render his thinking to being wrong, really, really wrong....
Stalin, Lenin, Mao, were all about the political, and Marx was not...

and as far as hubris is concerned, I can tell the difference
between the economic and the political...if that makes me
"smarter" than you, well so be it...and knowing what Marx
actually wrote, puts me quite a bit ahead of most people..
for example, he wrote that what he wanted was for
Men/human beings to be able to garden in the morning
and write poetry in the afternoon... and he wanted to
accomplish this on economic grounds, not on political grounds..
if you think Marxism as written by Marx, was about the political,
then you are vastly mistaken.. Marx was an economist, nothing
more... Stalin and Lenin were political writers, not economic writers...
as was Mao.... and if that is hubris, so be it....

Kropotkin

[phyllo]

I am not surprised at how badly you miss the point...
read Marx, I have and at no point do we read about
5 year plans, reeducation camps, political pogroms,
(the kulaks of the 1920's) or none of the things that
Lenin or Stalin did...that isn't in Marx...what Stalin
and Lenin did was not in Marx...and why?

Because there is a huge difference between theory and practice.

Marx wrote theory.

Lenin, Stalin and Mao are attempts to put theory into practice.

That's when reality hits. And it turns out that there are lots of problems with trying to implement the theory.

Just for laughs, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOlb9k4tz5g

[Immanuel Can]

read Marx,

I have. You want chapter and verse? Das Kapital and The Commie Manifesto are right here, on my desk. Try me.

Marx was a parasite and a fraud. His family found him a to be a sponge and a layabout. His supporters found him to be a leech. The only working-class woman he ever met found him to be a rapist, and his illegitimate son found him to utterly negligent. Marxism expert James Lindsay calls him a "B.S.er." That's about right. Even his Neo-Marxists admirers call his rubbish "crude Marxism" nowadays, because he got nearly everything in his analysis wrong, as history has demonstrated.

And phyllo is right: in practice (or in "praxis," to use Marx's word) Marxism always turns to blood and ruin. That's a historical fact.

No wonder you won't respond to Marxism's record. Marx is utterly indefensible. And on its record, Marxism has absolutely nothing to boast about, and everything to be ashamed of.

[Iwannaplato]

I am not surprised at how badly you miss the point...
read Marx, I have and at no point do we read about
5 year plans, reeducation camps, political pogroms,
(the kulaks of the 1920's) or none of the things that
Lenin or Stalin did...that isn't in Marx...what Stalin
and Lenin did was not in Marx...and why?

Because Marx was, first and foremost, was
an economist... Das Kapital is an economic book..
nothing more.. Marx had very little to do with the
political.

The last sentence is simply not true. And that's if we somehow grant that economics is remotely independent from politics. It's even sillier since the title of the thread refers to Marxism/Communism.

The problem is that the issue is not 'Marx was a bad guy' but rather 'What happens when people try to follow Marx? What happens when his analyses are implemented and governments arise amongst humans based on his ideas? Horrible things happen.

There are models that have worked, though not with stability as we can see these days, where some of his ideas get implemented - Scandanavia, for example.

But if you give Marx to people and they change society to match his ideas as best they can, nightmare societies arise.

That doesn't mean capitalism is good.

There might be other options. Capitalism is a blanket term for all sorts of ways of running a society.

I mean corporations are currently run AGAINST the ideas of Adam Smith.

We still get to say that capitalism has had enormous problems, even if it doesn't look like Smith intended.

And Marxism/Communism is not 'only exactly what Marx said.' Because if you only had what Marx said, there wouldn't be any organization of countries at all. He never made it clear. Which would mean you could never implement Marxism, according to you.

But Marx + society has been a bad mix.