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View Full Version : To think like a radical....



RadioRaheem84
20th April 2011, 17:35
How are we supposed to engage people to consider Marxism or socialism when our ideas are so far removed from daily discourse?

For instance, I was debating a right wing friend of mine about the oil price commodities and the rising gas prices. He told me that I was an idiot for complaining about speculation because speculation also precedes a price decrease.

Then he went on to say that it's basic Econ 101 (you've all heard this), that speculation is just a guess against the current state of the world. When uncertainty is evident, there is more demand for critical commodities.

Basically, all he did was give me a description of what speculation is without giving me a moral argument as to why it's a legitimate practice. I am assuming that it's a given to him that speculation is just a part of the global market, which is presupposed to be the normal way of life.

He did not see it in a social context, never read reports about how companies would halt food importing or store huge amounts of rice to drive up the price, nothing of the sort mattered.

How are we supposed to engage others to discover out ideas when the world is so radically right wing now, that any notion of smashing these presuppositions of the economy would be seen as undoing the world.

Gorilla
20th April 2011, 17:43
Ask your average person about speculation and they'll respond that it's bullshit. They might be nervous about the aftereffects if you banned it or whatever, but the only people who will go out and defend it as something good are even further removed from normal people's discourse than Marxists are.

Lenina Rosenweg
20th April 2011, 18:00
I'm not super knowlegable about the oil market but it does seem apparent that current price rise is due to speculation. This site is interesting, they're big on "peak oil" which I don't believe in but they are connected to industry insiders who seem to know their stuff.

http://www.theoildrum.com/

Speculation is completely rational when capitalism is taken for granted. Its completely irrational when looked at from the viewpoint of the human race and the planet. Even bourgeois writers in the Economist have linked the financial crisis, speculation, and widespread food insecurity in much of the world.

The bourgeois view is very myopic. Their economics may have much truth looked at in a narrow linear perspective but its designed to obscure the full picture. An imprtant part of this view is that "capitalism is normal", despite its faults its inevitable. Challenge your friend to break out of the narrow paradigm. Could there be other ways of doing things that weren't so hideously wasteful, that didn't have so many costly "externalities". He will probably say you're a utopian.A good counter to this would be a historical view of capitalist evolution. The direction we're heading has never been inevitable.