Do right wingers not prove us right every day?

[RadioRaheem84]

Are they not more Marxist then we are when they rail about the "common sense" of doing business in America? I was listening to this right wing blabbermouth about how he would love to pay his workers more but he would lose out in the end because of competitor companies lowering wages. I mean if that is not textbook Marx, I don't know what is. And he kept going on and on about how leftists are wrong because they don't know about Econ 101 and why we cannot solve this with higher wages.

I think that because of their erroneous conception that Keynesianism, Social Democracy, welfare state = Marxism, they ended up night and day proving Marx's assumptions about the contradiction and absurdity of capitalism. The irony is that they're spending their whole time on the airwaves battling something that's not there while proving us right!

I mean everything from a denial of basic human rights in favor of gaining what you can in the marketplace, to the justification and rationale of lowering wages, the fact that this system demands you to work harder for less pay. I mean they all think of these things as grand and brilliant, yet it's classic Marx 101.

All they do is defend exploitation, yet act as if it's "common sense". Well if its the common sense, rational logic of the system, then they prove Marx right every time they open their yaps. They just call it liberty!

We should do youtube video or assemble a collection of right wing rants about the "common sense" of the free market and tie it in to Marx's original critique of capitalism.
I think I found an article last week where Rush Limbaugh clearly states that we have no rights except for what we can gain for ourselves in the marketplace.

[<Insert Username Here>]

They agree with us, they just don't know it yet. Greed is the only reason to resist Marxism, and for 99% of the population greed isn't worth it- they just don't realise they're small fish and aren't the ones under threat. Which is why we will win in the end. Because we are morally superior, educated, wise and growing :)

[rednordman]

I couldnt have agreed with that post anymore. The real problem is that nowadays, most workers blame the individual companies for this, not the system. The brutal reality is that every place is competing with each other to see who can make the next step backwards (towards the victorian era again i guess). And to think that they are so arrogant to call this 'common sense'!

I think the real milestone to all of this is how market competition has totally lost touch with reality. Its like where i work, we can only achieve what they expect from us, by breaking health and safety legislation, YET, they still get us to sign sheets that basically means that WE are at fault if we get injured, never THEM.

Honestly, i take it the the phrase 'common sense' has changed its meaning, because if you look at the state of industry nowadays, it beggers belief. You honestly couldnt make this up.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Depends what you mean by right wingers.

My personal belief is that due to hugely sub-standard educational standards and attainment (i'll resist a conspiracy theory-style rant), many working people who have political views alien their personal economic viewpoint (for instance, the strange phenomena of 'working-class Tories' in this country out of sheer ignorance. This theory probably applies to them.

To the right-wingers in the ruling class, I'm not sure that this is a relevant argument at all - they have deeply developed and hugely propagandised arguments as an excuse to maintain their economic hegemony - the typical 'brain drain' reply to any discussion of tax rises, for example.

[Chimurenga.]

If the people in the US were given a clear and non-right wing, propagandized version of "Marxism", I know for a fact that a good majority would not oppose it whatsoever. I still think that there would be some people who would be hesitant at first but overall, I honestly think people would embrace it.

[RadioRaheem84]

Depends what you mean by right wingers.

My personal belief is that due to hugely sub-standard educational standards and attainment (i'll resist a conspiracy theory-style rant), many working people who have political views alien their personal economic viewpoint (for instance, the strange phenomena of 'working-class Tories' in this country out of sheer ignorance. This theory probably applies to them.

To the right-wingers in the ruling class, I'm not sure that this is a relevant argument at all - they have deeply developed and hugely propagandised arguments as an excuse to maintain their economic hegemony - the typical 'brain drain' reply to any discussion of tax rises, for example.

This was a right winger filling in for Rush Limbaugh. Our right wing spout off nonsense in the media and prove us right every time.

[Barry Lyndon]

I think that because of their erroneous conception that Keynesianism, Social Democracy, welfare state = Marxism, they ended up night and day proving Marx's assumptions about the contradiction and absurdity of capitalism. The irony is that they're spending their whole time on the airwaves battling something that's not there while proving us right!Iv'e run into this a few times. When I argue with a free-market fundamentalist, they'll bring up examples of liberal/social democrat hypocrisy and so on, and they don't realize that their actually strengthening my argument, that I'm not defending such ideologies. I have to explain to them that Keynes DOES NOT = Marx, Lenin, Che, Mao, Chavez, that Keynes was a rabid anti-socialist and advocated a welfare state to PREVENT socialist revolution.
I think its because the United States has lacked a real left for so long, that the right doesn't know what an actual socialist/communist IS, and are baffled if by chance they do happen to run into one.

[Philzer]

Hi comrades!


...I think its because the United States has lacked a real left for so long, that the right doesn't know what an actual socialist/communist IS,......

In all your posts are disown the dialectic unity between the rulers and the peoples. You know so much interesting details about the exploitation-lies from the capitalists, but you don’t get philosophical conclusions of this.

Note:

Every dialectic unit has a primary connecting element, and a secondary combative conflicting element.

The primary element of the unit of rulers and peoples for all steps of class-society is the same consciousness, the step of opportunism. *

And the secondary element of this unit, which is resulted from the primary, and hence subordinate, is what Marx called (espacially defined for capitalism) the conflict between capital and work (http://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=Marx+conflict+between+capital+and+work&hl=de&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart).

* I have tried to find a philosophical definition of opportunisms:

(german, use a translator: http://www.online-translator.com/Default.aspx/Text )

http://aufbruch.foren-city.de/topic,795,-opportunismus.html



...Greed is the only reason to resist Marxism, and for 99% of the population greed isn't worth it- they just don't realise they're small fish and aren't the ones under threat.......

Exactly. Otherwise would no kind of democracy exist ever!


http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html


Kind regards

[Chambered Word]

Iv'e run into this a few times. When I argue with a free-market fundamentalist, they'll bring up examples of liberal/social democrat hypocrisy and so on, and they don't realize that their actually strengthening my argument, that I'm not defending such ideologies. I have to explain to them that Keynes DOES NOT = Marx, Lenin, Che, Mao, Chavez, that Keynes was a rabid anti-socialist and advocated a welfare state to PREVENT socialist revolution.
I think its because the United States has lacked a real left for so long, that the right doesn't know what an actual socialist/communist IS, and are baffled if by chance they do happen to run into one.


How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.

Conservatives really are an amusing bunch.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I like what people have said on this issue. However, I actually see it as a problem - the right-wing is tapping into populist as well as working class frustration and anger but funneling this anger into scapegoating and fear-mongering.

Without an independent and militant left tapping into this anger, all that people hear are liberal apologists talking about how great it will be when the bank stimulus "trickles-down" or when companies out of their benevolence begin investing in green-technology. People know this isn't working and is bullshit, but the only people giving answers and expressing frustration right now are the conservative talking heads and right-wing populists!

Here's a specific example: education - liberals are saying "we just need different standards and to tweak this or that". Conservatives on the other hand are saying: "no, public education is broken we need to throw the whole system out and try for-profit education instead". So while almost any worker from first hand experience knows the schools don't work and that no amount of tweaking can really solve major problems - the only alternative on the table is the right-wing alternative.

It's part of the insanity and strategic-schizophrenia of right-wing politics in the US. The ruling class goes on the offensive and the right-wing backs (the Democrats too) all these policies that basically have destroyed working class living standards: corporate tax breaks/service cuts, more expenses for us; right to work for the bosses/union-busting for us. But then after 30 years of pushing these policies on us, it's the very same right-wing forces who back people like Lou Dobbs who go on TV and print and radio and say: "the middle class in sunder attack". Sure is buddy and you've been helping to lead the charge this whole time! But what's Beck and Limbaugh and Dobbs answer: blame immigrants, blame union "entitlements", blame people on welfare, hell blame feminists!

[Raúl Duke]

All they do is defend exploitation, yet act as if it's "common sense". Well if its the common sense, rational logic of the system, then they prove Marx right every time they open their yaps.It is "common sense," in the logic of capitalism that is. Just like during feudalism a couple of concepts we now would consider wrong were "common-sense" in their time.

In a sense, we are both "right."
But we take these facts, we take history, and see that this "common-sense" is really just a matter of perspective and that it can be rendered obsolete if we rid of the material conditions behind them. What's "common-sense" sometime only applies to certain epochs in history.

They see capitalist exploitation as a given. We also see it as a "given" but only under capitalism, in other words we take it a step further and realize the possibility of radical change which usually they ignore, don't have a good idea (i.e. equate socialism with totalitarianism, etc due to previous "socialist" states or ridiculously equate it to Keynesian/welfare policies), are skeptical, or etc. We know that if you replace capitalism with a society where the previously oppressed are in control than eventually exploitation will turn from a "given" to part of the trash in the dustbin of history

[RadioRaheem84]

It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.

Process of conversion is right. Jeez, Keynes was an elitist from hell.

Why are their socialist leaning Keynesians like Joan Robinson and Hyman Minsky. Did they not read this quote from Keynes?

[Klaatu]

Part of the problem is that Marx's theories are not taught in the U.S. schools.
All our kids hear about is capitalism, free market, free country, all of that.
And they hear about "commie pinko socialist bastards" on TV and talk radio.

Try to find a college-level econ-101 class that gives any positive mention to
a socialist system (good luck with that)

Schools could at least present a balanced view of all economic systems,
the way they would have to present (in public schools) a balanced study
of world religions, not one being favored over another.

[CartCollector]

How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement?Does this remind anyone else of Ayn Rand?



Schools could at least present a balanced view of all economic systems,
the way they would have to present (in public schools) a balanced study
of world religions, not one being favored over another.Have you heard of Post-Autistic Economics? It's a movement to change economics classes to this method. Read more about it here: http://www.autisme-economie.org/article115.html

[Barry Lyndon]

Have you heard of Post-Autistic Economics? It's a movement to change economics classes to this method. Read more about it here: http://www.autisme-economie.org/article115.html

I find the labeling of neo-liberal economics as 'autistic' to be highly offensive. It plays to the stereotype of people with autism as being uncaring and lacking empathy. Just because autistic people may often have trouble outwardly expressing empathy, doesn't mean they aren't empathetic. Conversely, there are neurologically 'normal' people who can fake having empathy for others-I think that's way more fucked up, if you ask me. Sorry, this ticks me off because I am autistic myself and have Aspergers syndrome, and am also a Marxist, a position I came to in large part precisely because I have empathy for other people. They should really choose another title.

[CartCollector]

I agree. But, the reason they chose 'autistic' was not because of an unempathetic stereotype of autistics, but because what they meant by 'autistic' was "abnormal subjectivity, acceptance of fantasy rather than reality." I was thinking that "Post-Narcissistic Economics" might be a better term, but the problem is that narcissism is also a mental disorder. Maybe "Post-Neoclassical Economics?" It's really long, and it isn't synonymous with the original phrase, but they could just refer to it as "PNE" for short.