Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2026 2:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2026 5:11 am
Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2026 3:22 am
Marx is not responsible for what anyone said.
Marx is responsible for what Marx said and not the distortions carried forward in his name, none of which he could have known about, or from what I've read, agreed with.
Well, the reason his disciples have had to add things to what he said is that almost everything he predicted turned out to be wrong. So Marx's failure is at the root of the problem of the Neo-Marxists' existence. Even they will tell you that much -- nobody can really believe in what they call "crude Marxism" anymore. He was too often simply wrong.
The main thing that Marx was wrong about was believing that humanity would someday live in a classless society. Otherwise, most of what he described he described in ways that are difficult to dispute.
Not at all difficult. His whole theory is a mess. It alleges to be an economic theory, but it's a total disaster. It alleges to be scientific, but has no science in it. It's a giant exercise of bloviating rhetoric, not a pattern for any real-world political success.
The owner's profit is indeed that which he does not pay to the workers
This is a very good example of his stupidity. Can you imagine a man who knew so little economics that he presented his theory in such a way as to assert that "value" means "worker's labour"? Even during the Industrial Revolution, there was much more to any business equation than some primordial struggle between "owners" and "labourers." There are such messy things as investments, innovations, trades, value-ads, entrepreneurship, risk, supply chains, financiers, currency exchange, markets...so many things of which he had little to no understanding. What sort of an idiot sees everything as a simplistic battle between workers and owners?
The only thing the owner does is take a risk.
Seriously? So you think he just magically "owns" without ever having first invented, funded, bought, built, financed, insured, located markets, created advertising, purchasing materials and equipment...and a host of other things?
But what is he risking?
Bankruptcy and poverty.
Unfortunately, human civilization can't seem to produce as much wealth without exploiting some people.
Hogwash.
Let's take a case. Consider Bill Gates. When he invented his computer in his garage, and then sold it to millions who were clamouring to buy it, whom did he need to "exploit" in order to produce his billions?
This is the big point all Socialists seem to miss: value isn't zero-sum. That is, there isn't a fixed amount of value in the world, such that one man's gain forces another man's loss. Rather, new value is created all the time, and there are many ways to add value while exploiting nobody and benefitting everybody.
Simple example: if a man wants to build himself a house, and so he makes a hammer, he solves his own problem, and just once. If he finds his hammer-making method is good, and if he can make them cheaper than the price he can ask for them, he makes two hammers and sells one to his neighbour, he's solved his own problem AND his neighbour's problem, AND made money. If he makes a thousand hammers, and people line up to buy them voluntarily, because they all want to build themselves houses, he solves his own problem, his neighbours problem, the similar problem of thousands of people, and makes money doing it.
What has he done wrong?