Marxism Work

[h&s]

OK I know I'm not exactly new here, but as we have no research forum yet, I'll have to post this here.
The thing is that I'm going to have to write a piece of debate for my General Studies (pointless subject I know, but we have to do it) Class in Sixth Form, and I decided to chose the topic;
Are the Principles of Marxism Still Valid in the 21st Centruy?
I'm not exactly brilliant at finding what I want on google, so I appreciate it if I could get some biased views on this subject, as the whole point of the exercise is to analyse sources. Views for or against it would be welcome (as in from an anarchist view point aswell as a Marxist one).
Also, has anyone got any figures for poverty/unemployment/courruption/shit government in the UK? (Uk preferred, but if you have figures for the US, they will do)
Any help would be truly appreciated. :)
Thanks.

[T_SP]

Originally posted by hammer&[email protected] 5 2004, 03:28 PM
OK I know I'm not exactly new here, but as we have no research forum yet, I'll have to post this here.
The thing is that I'm going to have to write a piece of debate for my General Studies (pointless subject I know, but we have to do it) Class in Sixth Form, and I decided to chose the topic;
Are the Principles of Marxism Still Valid in the 21st Centruy?
I'm not exactly brilliant at finding what I want on google, so I appreciate it if I could get some biased views on this subject, as the whole point of the exercise is to analyse sources. Views for or against it would be welcome (as in from an anarchist view point aswell as a Marxist one).
Also, has anyone got any figures for poverty/unemployment/courruption/shit government in the UK? (Uk preferred, but if you have figures for the US, they will do)
Any help would be truly appreciated. :)
Thanks.
Yo dude!! Try searching on our website for figures etc. Also you might find some handy info there. Also try Here (http://www.marxist.net) Also consider what is in the Com. Manif and other Marx writings and decide for yourself if you think it's still relevant or not.
Hope this helps ( probably won't)

[New Tolerance]

A few things concerning Leftist economics that you might be able to use:

BENEFITS OF PUBLIC INDUSTRIES (not all developed by Marx though - I think)

Public industries are democratic, since they will controlled (although not always the case) by a democratically elected government.

Where as corporations are not democratic, since they are 'private', and can use their resources for whatever they want. (potentially, although they still have to listen to consumers to survive, but that only motivates them to use mind control on the consumers - ie: commericals now days are not logical explanations of what a product does, but rather tied to subjective things that target peoples' emotions rather than their ability to reason)

Public industries can be used to stimulate an economy since they can run at a loss of profit on purpose to keep a product cheap - ie: steel, copper, electricity.

The cheaper steel prices will in turn help other industries that need the steel (ie car industry, construction, machinary), giving them a lower operating cost, which allows them to expand production (dropping the price of their products, and sending this rippling effect through out the rest of the economy), and hire more people (dropping unemployment, increasing productive workforce, and further increasing productivity).

Since all these other industries are (should) also be democratically controlled (either by a democratic government, or some kind of Social Industrial Commitee), a small portion of the increased revenue in each of these industries (remember, there are alot of those other industries, so the sum of these "small portions" is actually a significant amount of resources) can then be taken by the commitee and be returned to the steel industry to fill up their loss. (allowing them to pull off the same trick again in the future) An actual example of this in reality would be the fact that the recent world recession was reversed by low copper prices, which helped the high-tech industries (which need copper for computers and other high-tech equipment). This was talked about on the Economist magazine last year. (too bad it can no longer be accessed)

Public industries can pull an economy out of recession/depression, since they exert a counter-cyclic effect by running at a loss during times of recession by maintaining employment (and not laying people off). This would in turn keep money in the pockets of workers and allow them to continue purchasing products (in other words, it maintains demand for products) which allows your industrial revenue to stay up (this would also buy you time to figure out what is wrong and fix the problem), which pulls you out of recession. There are numerous examples of this, one would be: US New Deal during the great depression.

Private corporations can't do the same thing, if they run into a recession, they will throw out the workforce, that's the only way for them to make quick money (emphasize quick), as their interest (as chartered) is the 'immediate' benefit of their shareholders.

Other benefits:

- resources would not have to be wasted on advertisement.
- state institutions can run at a loss, to research things that are useful to humanity that are not (yet) profitable. Ie: internet was invented by the Pentagon, transittor (from which computers and the information theory sprang forth) research was sponsored by tax dollars, and even the early pioneering of nuclear technology was done by the government (we all know about that one... <_< ).

There are a whole bunch of stuff like this that&#39;s not being taken into account by economists in the heavily ideologicalized &#39;science of economics&#39;...

[New Tolerance]

More stuff:

US poverty increasing: (Britain has very high poverty rates too, you can find that on the CIA factbook)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5832010/

More socialist (supposing that France is more socialist than the US) policies do NOT reduce industrial efficiency:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3579276.stm

[Hiero]

Focus on poorer industrial nations where the working class are not benifited by imperialism. You could also talk about the current revolution&#39;s following Mao&#39;s Marxism.

[h&s]

Thanks for the info people&#33; :)