What did Marx say about this or that?

[the debater]

Some common objections I hear about socialism are that socialists don't believe in merit pay, or that socialists want to ban guns completely. I personally think anyone should be allowed to register for gun ownership AS LONG AS they are qualified. Likewise, I would counter the merit pay argument by saying that many early factory bosses didn't believe in merit pay either! I guess just in the "opposite direction". (In other words, workers working too hard and getting paid too little; as opposed to lazy public union workers who work too little and get paid too much).

[Buzzard]

I dont know which socialists you've been talking to

[Brutus]

"There are no circumstances imaginable, not even victory, under which the proletariat should give up its possession of arms." -- Karl Marx

" 4. The whole population shall be armed." -- "The Demands of the Communist Party in Germany", Marx and Engels

"the workers must be armed and organized. The arming of the whole proletariat with flintlocks, carbines, guns and ammunition must be put in hand directly" -- Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, March 1850

"Arms and ammunition are on no account to be handed over; every attempt at disarmament must be frustrated, by force if need be."

[Buffalo]

Is there an official position on abortion that Communism has? Does it vary from Communist to Communist? Did Marx ever have a position on it?

[Brutus]

Is there an official position on abortion that Communism has? Does it vary from Communist to Communist? Did Marx ever have a position on it?

All communists are pro-choice as we believe that one can do as they please with their body and we are opposed to bourgeois moralism.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Is there an official position on abortion that Communism has? Does it vary from Communist to Communist? Did Marx ever have a position on it?

There is no "official" guidelines on issues such as abortions. While I personally am pro-choice, you can be a communist and be anti-choice as well, though I think it's a stupid belief.

[Klaatu]

"lazy public union workers who work too little and get paid too much)."

I resent that statement.

I work in the public sector... Just where are these "lazy" public workers? I don't see that at all.

[Brutus]

you can be a communist and be anti-choice as well
Since when can misogynists be Marxians? Unrestricted access to abortions, as well as sex education and access to contraception are causes of womens' liberation, therefore are the causes of communists too. 'Pro-life' is just a guise for bourgeois moralists, misogynists and patriarchs.

[Buffalo]

Since when can misogynists be Marxians? Unrestricted access to abortions, as well as sex education and access to contraception are causes of womens' liberation, therefore are the causes of communists too. 'Pro-life' is just a guise for bourgeois moralists, misogynists and patriarchs.

Forgive me for being a bit uneducated in the topic, but what does the term bourgeois moralism mean? I understand the bourgeois part, but I am having trouble piecing together what it means.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Since when can misogynists be Marxians?Most pro-lifers are pro-life because of religious reasons, ie they believe abortion kills a being with a soul (acquired at conception). I don't know about pro-life men, but I don't believe pro-life women are self-hating. I've never believed the idea that women who are wrong on an issue are self-hating.

Unrestricted access to abortions, as well as sex education and access to contraception are causes of womens' liberation, therefore are the causes of communists too. I agree and have never state otherwise.

'Pro-life' is just a guise for bourgeois moralists,Well duh, the pro-life position is a moralist position. I don't deny that.

misogynists and patriarchs.There are many mysoginists and patriarchs who are pro-choice and others who are pro-life.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Forgive me for being a bit uneducated in the topic, but what does the term bourgeois moralism mean? I understand the bourgeois part, but I am having trouble piecing together what it means.

Basically, bourgeois moralism is any type of 'moral' position that one takes that has no real basis in material fact, but is only taken for either 'religious' reasons or simple contrarianism.


The opposition to gay marriage, for example, is bourgeois moralism due to the fact that any and all opposition is based solely in either religious ("it's against god's law") or personal opposition ("it's icky", "it's unnatural", etc).

But it can also come from liberal sectors as well. Opposition to, and legislating attempts to ban eating fast food due to things like obesity, for example. It's based on a do-gooder attempt to 'save people from themselves' in order to make the do-gooder feel better about themselves, instead of trying to fix the underlying problems that are linked to obesity in the first place (poverty, for example).


Basically, it's either trying to deflect from the real problem at hand, or creating a problem out of thin air.

[Anti-Traditional]

"There are no circumstances imaginable, not even victory, under which the proletariat should give up its possession of arms." -- Karl Marx

" 4. The whole population shall be armed." -- "The Demands of the Communist Party in Germany", Marx and Engels

"the workers must be armed and organized. The arming of the whole proletariat with flintlocks, carbines, guns and ammunition must be put in hand directly" -- Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, March 1850

"Arms and ammunition are on no account to be handed over; every attempt at disarmament must be frustrated, by force if need be."

The context in which Marx said this should be considered. The US Constitution allowed for guns to protect ourselves against tyrannical govt. Back then it would have been guns v guns in a revolution, now if we took arms it would be guns v tanks, drones etc...we wouldn't stand a chance. Thus, there is no reason why Communists should support the 'right' to bear arms.

[Brutus]

The context in which Marx said this should be considered. The US Constitution allowed for guns to protect ourselves against tyrannical govt. Back then it would have been guns v guns in a revolution, now if we took arms it would be guns v tanks, drones etc...we wouldn't stand a chance. Thus, there is no reason why Communists should support the 'right' to bear arms.

This is even more reasons why we should support the forming of workers militias and the abolition of the standing army. The Taliban appear to be doing alright against drones and the like.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The context in which Marx said this should be considered. The US Constitution allowed for guns to protect ourselves against tyrannical govt. Back then it would have been guns v guns in a revolution, now if we took arms it would be guns v tanks, drones etc...we wouldn't stand a chance. Thus, there is no reason why Communists should support the 'right' to bear arms.I agree that we shouldn't view this in the abstract sense of a "right" - even in the US this is a selective right that doesn't apply to everyone.

Also arms are not our strongest power, which is potential mass control over production (which would include the production of weapons, right). Our best hope in terms of the modern military is that class polarization and struggle outside the army will divide and disorient it enough to at least initially break-down. But that being said, arms will probably be needed at certain times to defend worker-occupied workplaces in a revolution - or even before to defend people in intense strikes or political struggles like during the depression or civil rights movement.

In the Spanish Revolution and the Paris Commune, arming the urban population was a major part of the resistance.

[the debater]

I resent that statement.

I work in the public sector... Just where are these "lazy" public workers? I don't see that at all.

I was being sarcastic. I have an ultra-conservative father, so I get a lot of terms from him.

[Anti-Traditional]

This is even more reasons why we should support the forming of workers militias and the abolition of the standing army. The Taliban appear to be doing alright against drones and the like.

Yes but they're fighting as a guerilla army up in the hills, completely detached from the mass of the population. The terrain allows them the ability fight in this way, and also the fact that many Taliban fighters will have spent large parts of their lives fighting. In any case, if the govt was to use armed force against us, the heat would come down far more heavily than it is being used in Afghanistan.

[Brutus]

So you propose that we remain defenceless? The completion of the minimum programme are a prerequisite for proletarian revolution. One of the minimum demands is:

3. Education of all to bear arms. Militia in the place of the standing army. Determination by the popular assembly on questions of war and peace. Settlement of all international disputes by arbitration.

[Anti-Traditional]

So you propose that we remain defenceless? The completion of the minimum programme are a prerequisite for proletarian revolution. One of the minimum demands is:

Our best and only defence is that we withdraw our labour. If there's no one to produce the tanks, the bombs, the guns etc... then they won't be able to fight against us.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Our best and only defence is that we withdraw our labour. If there's no one to produce the tanks, the bombs, the guns etc... then they won't be able to fight against us.

Or, they could start rounding people up and force them into serfdom.

The working class needs a means to defend itself, and its awful hard to do that without guns.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I agree that we shouldn't view this in the abstract sense of a "right" - even in the US this is a selective right that doesn't apply to everyone.

Also arms are not our strongest power, which is potential mass control over production (which would include the production of weapons, right). Our best hope in terms of the modern military is that class polarization and struggle outside the army will divide and disorient it enough to at least initially break-down. But that being said, arms will probably be needed at certain times to defend worker-occupied workplaces in a revolution - or even before to defend people in intense strikes or political struggles like during the depression or civil rights movement.

In the Spanish Revolution and the Paris Commune, arming the urban population was a major part of the resistance.

Yeah. The most likely spots of protest are in urban areas and public spaces. I think the Occupy movement hit a spot that not many Communists noticed, that is the dwindling public spaces for protests in the first place.

If we Communists in the US want to turn future popular protests in our country's largest cities into actual mass demonstrations as we see in Portugal currently, then we have to seek to force the Bourgeoisie to concede some public space. Only a mass worker party could enact such reforms that would encourage public politicization. Further, it would have to be a communist Party, which would be strategic in its reform demands (for public space and more).

This mass Communist Party would have to push for reforms to win public space for mass protests in city areas that would be advantageous from a strategic view for an existing worker Party military plan against the Bourgeois armed forces in the city. The more public space is won, the more likely and versatile protests can be. Non-party organized, 'popular' protests could be 'infiltrated' and directed by party members towards public spaces advantageous for insurrection.

Say, for instance, a mass popular protest against a certain racist killing and blatant bourgeois judicial injustice is held in a downtown park.
Assume that this protest was organized a few days in advance and the workers' mass communist Party which has entrenched itself as a widely known opposition in local and national politics, had enough time to organize a plan and prepare banners ["Can't have Capitalism without Racism" -Malcolm X] to join this protest. Party members should agitate among the crowd for the arrest of some prominent local bourgeois state officials who perhaps let a racist slur slip once, in order to give "the Bourgeoisie" a face, a name and a place of residence. The protest could then be led by party members down to a nearby part of the city where the corrupt persons agitated against are located. Arms and such could be planned to be stationed in trucks nearby for workers to take hold of when barred from entering by the police, and other strategic parts of the bourgeois state within the city be raided at the same time. Naturally a military plan as such would have to take a lot into consideration: police stations, military bases, the soldiers' discipline within the bourgeois Army, the revolutionary-strategic progress in neighboring cities, states and countries etc.

The goal for us Communists has to always be to make clear to the people that the existing authority has absolutely no legitimacy and that the working people must take state power and enforce justice themselves if we are to see change. We have to paint the prominent representatives of the Bourgeois state as criminals and demand their punishment. "The Bourgeoisie" are actual people. We have to build newspapers and get dirt on these people who enforce this rotten system, to eventually build a popular anger against these notorious politicians and police chiefs, henchmen of the Billionaires' club.

[Klaatu]

Originally Posted by Klaatu http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2645733#post2645733)
I resent that statement.

I work in the public sector... Just where are these "lazy" public workers? I don't see that at all.

I was being sarcastic. I have an ultra-conservative father, so I get a lot of terms from him.I don't mean to jump into your shit. I had the notion that you were probably trying to present such a point.
I was actually aiming my wrath toward those who really do mean such things (such as the bumbling idiots over at Fox News)

[Anti-Traditional]

Or, they could start rounding people up and force them into serfdom.

The working class needs a means to defend itself, and its awful hard to do that without guns.

I very much doubt we'll be rounded up and put into serfdom, the Capitalists need a market on which to sell their products and if we were all serfs we wouldn't be able to afford them.

I think I should clarify my position on guns. I am in favour of gun control, and I don't think guns should be kept in homes. The statistics of gun crime in the UK vs the US are enough to convince me of this. In the UK you don't see random massacres by alienated individuals on anywhere near as regular a basis.

You'd probably argue we should have guns to defend ourselves against the state, police etc... Well in the US cops carry guns far more often and shoot people more often, a symptom of how omnipresent the gun in in all layers of society, whereas in the UK cops don't carry guns as much since they don't really need them which can only be a good thing.

The only good reason I can think of for widespread ownership of guns is that which is quoted in the US constitution, 'for protection against tyrannical govt', which doesnt really make sense for reasons I explained earlier.

If we make the revolution it will be not through our ability to use force but our withdrawing of labour, factory occupations etc...in short neutralising the ability of the Capitalists to exploit labour. After the revolution armed defence might be neccessary, but even then distribution of guns shouldn't be kept in the homes of individuals but should be under the control of the workers organisations for use in emergency.

[the debater]

I don't mean to jump into your shit. I had the notion that you were probably trying to present such a point.
I was actually aiming my wrath toward those who really do mean such things (such as the bumbling idiots over at Fox News)

While I try to remain wary of certain newscasters on both MSNBC and Fox News, I will say that I admire Rachel Maddow, and also that I enjoy listening to Alan Colmes' radio show. He does have a decent sense of humour. :cool: