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Marxism for Fun and Profit

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  • That the inherent destructiveness to the human psyche caused by the alienation of workers from life in general and their work in particular is an intrinsic part of the free market capitalist system--it is in fact a necessary part of the exploitation of workers by capitalists;

  • That the so-called "representative democracies" are nothing more than tools of the corrupt capitalist economic system, a placebo to keep the workers from rising against their oppressors;

  • That the representative democracies would one day be replaced by a "dictatorship of the proletariat," a true democratic and egalitarian system in which the workers--both male and female--who were effected by a given condition in the World, would decide among themselves, by consensus, what would be done at their place of work and within their local community on all local political issues;

  • That larger versions of this self-same consensus would be used at higher levels to make the decisions on broader issues involving diverse groups beyond the local community, that at both the local and higher levels the guiding principle would be "Each according to his ability, each according to his needs;

  • That the current political, economic, and social systems are so inherently corrupt, and completely anti-worker that they must be overthrown by a violent revolution of the workers, and replaced with an entirely new Communistic system, retaining nothing of the old system, in order for things to get better. It is this insistence on violence by Marx as the only means of lasting change, together with his rigid adherence to his changing the system from the top down, that loses any support I might have for his program.

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    It is not these aspects of Marx's philosophy per se , which have made him a viable political and economic philosopher for so many people around the globe for more than a century. Rather it is Marx's accurate predictions of the growing misery of working people, as well as the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, which occurs under the so-called free market capitalist system that has made him required reading for any student of economics, political science, history, or sociology in the Twenty-First Century.

     

    Karl Marx and his Communist state, or Mikhail Bakunin and his Anarchist collective, are generally thought to be one extreme of the economic spectrum. The Chicago School of Economics (Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, et al.), and the Austrian School of Economics (Ludwig von Mises, Murray K. Rothbard, et al.) are said to represent the other. The first two represent the extremes of socialism, the second two the extremes of free market capitalism.

     

    There is no such thing as a truly "free" market. Any capitalist system that is not regulated by the government to work in the best interest of the nation as a whole will quickly degenerate into a self-serving system of economic, political, and social Darwinism. Within an unregulated capitalist system, the big fish will rapidly devour the smaller ones until a great leviathan of monopoly, or a coterie of collusion, establish control, ending freedom for any but the capitalists. This simple fact is as true as any generalization involving human beings can be. Adam Smith's infamous "invisible hand," lacks the ability to overcome the power of multinational corporations--if it ever had it--to effectively collude with, or eliminate their competition in this era of instantaneous computerized electronic communications and corporate earnings larger than most nations' GDP. When the first great American Tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was asked if he did not owe the public some consideration as he raised his shipping rates, he replied, "The public be damned." This has been, and continues to be, the watchword of large-scale capitalism around the world for more than one-hundred-and-fifty-years.

     

    Ultimately, unregulated or "free market" capitalism, orbits about the twin concepts of maximum return and minimal risk. This means that: 1) the exploitation of workers by reducing their wages, benefits, and decreasing workplace safety; 2) the corrupting of government officials and bureaucracies for the sake of lower taxes, fewer regulations, and receiving greater government subsidies; 3) the elimination of other, competing businesses by any means possible; are necessary if immoral practices (from the point of view of what is best for the general public) for every successful business entity in a free market capitalist society. As Cornelius Vanderbilt once said, "What you call monopoly, I call entrepreneurship."

     

    Capitalism is a very useful tool for an industrial society. Mahatma Gandhi once stated that, "Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed." ( Harijan , July 28, 1940.) Capitalism, like fire and government, is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. When capitalism is allowed to run uncontrolled, like the wild bull that is the symbol of a rising stock market, is when we discover that it most represents a clear and present danger to itself and the society that it is supposed to serve.

     

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