Great Idea?

[Counter-Corporate Jujitsu]

Originally posted by "A forum description as unbiased as FOX News"
Who was Marx? What was his great idea?

What "great idea? I don't think that it was so special. If you could tone the bias a tad I really appreciate it. I know I'm going to be ad-hommed and called 'not a real leftist', but, quite frankly, I don't care.

[commiecrusader]

Great has more than one meaning.

It doesn't mean the idea was amazing necessarily.

It could be 'great' because of it's scope, or because its become so big.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

It is nice to see some critical thinking on the left. :)

[Counter-Corporate Jujitsu]

It's nice to be agreed with once in a while. :D

[Pawn Power]

The idea of communism is not really that difficult to fathom, in fact, it as basically common sense. Marx's great idea was on how this would all occure and the scientific certainty that it would occure.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

it as basically common sense


That is an opinion, not a fact.


Most people would disagree with you that it is "common sense".

[NovelGentry]

That is an opinion, not a fact.

Most people would disagree with you that it is "common sense".


In all fairness he did say basically.

But you're right, it is an opinion, I'm not sure he ever stated it was otherwise. Strangely enough, it's a fairly common opinion of many who read it with an open mind. There are a few problems here and there of course but those very solid parts are generally (and once again this is an opinion) not much more than common sense. Obviously the downside to this is that we can't expect ALL people to grasp Marx ;)

I tend to find most of the people who jump on simple misguided attacks against Marxism tend not to have even bothered reading any of his work. You can tell this with many of the assumption they make in their argument, as well as some of the simply foolish things they say. Almost every single one of ahhh_money_is_comfort's post is like this. Just out of curiosity, how much Marx have you read?

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Counter-Corporate Jujitsu+Jan 2 2005, 11:18 PM--> (Counter-Corporate Jujitsu @ Jan 2 2005, 11:18 PM)
"A forum description as unbiased as FOX News"
Who was Marx? What was his great idea?

What "great idea? I don't think that it was so special. If you could tone the bias a tad I really appreciate it. I know I'm going to be ad-hommed and called 'not a real leftist', but, quite frankly, I don't care. [/b]
Marx was the first philosopher to look at society divorced from any cultural preconceptions and therefore the first philosopher, and social scientist, to look at society completely scientifically. This makes him special.

Have you read much of Marx? Do you know why we consider his idea to be 'great'?

Do you have any idea as to the extent Marx has influenced our present thinking and particularly how much he has influenced all social sciences? - and probably your own thinking too

[Karl Marx's Camel]

The war against Iraq was also 'great'.

They took over the country in just a few days.

[NovelGentry]

The war against Iraq was also 'great'.

They took over the country in just a few days.

Just out of curiosity, how much Marx have you read?

[commiecrusader]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 08:01 PM
The war against Iraq was also 'great'.

They took over the country in just a few days.
It is debatable as to whether they have 'taken over' the country even now. Occupied, yes. But how much control do they actually have?

[Pawn Power]

The war against Iraq was also 'great'.

They took over the country in just a few days.

Stop changing the subject of the thread. The war in Iraq was great in the sense that it was extrem but it was in no way great as the significance of Marx's writtings.
We are not here to define the word "great".

[Karl Marx's Camel]

It is debatable as to whether they have 'taken over' the country even now. Occupied, yes. But how much control do they actually have?

Yes, what I meant was that they occupied the country in a few days.


Stop changing the subject of the thread. The war in Iraq was great in the sense that it was extrem but it was in no way great as the significance of Marx's writtings.

How do you know the intention was that it was not a "great idea", in the way that it was brilliant? "Greatness" is subjective. It might just as well have said


Who was Marx? What was his terrible idea?

[NovelGentry]

Yes, what I meant was that they occupied the country in a few days.


How do you know the intention was that it was not a "great idea", in the way that it was brilliant? "Greatness" is subjective. It might just as well have said

Just out of curiosity, how much Marx have you read?

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by Counter-Corporate Jujitsu+Jan 2 2005, 11:18 PM--> (Counter-Corporate Jujitsu @ Jan 2 2005, 11:18 PM)
"A forum description as unbiased as FOX News"
Who was Marx? What was his great idea?

What "great idea? I don't think that it was so special. If you could tone the bias a tad I really appreciate it. I know I'm going to be ad-hommed and called 'not a real leftist', but, quite frankly, I don't care. [/b]
Darwin discovered and explained the evolution of the species. Marx discovered and explained the evolution of the human society. Neither was determinists though, as many would suggest. But both were great scientists and did much to increase or knowledge and understanding of our world. Marx was not only one of the greatest (maybe the gretest) economics ever, but also a great historian, sociologist, philosopher etc. He also had a very good understanding of the nature sciences, and sent corresponded with Darwin amongst others. He was a very bright man in many areas. So far very possibly the greatest scientist ever. Not even the bourgeoisie intellectuals dare claim that Marx was a fool. Every serious scientist hold Marx in great respect, even if they do not agree with him. And the brittish people did vote forth him as the greatest man in history, or something like that.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Out of curiousity how much Marx have you guys read?

[flyby]

Actually, we shouldn't act like "Marx had a great idea: communism."

First because communism is not some utopian "idea" -- that we dream up apart from reality, and then try to realize.

But also because the idea of communism preceded Marx -- there was a world of communist movements and currents that influenced him in his youth.

Here is what marx wrote (himself) about his main contributions.

It comes from a famous 1862 letter to Joseph
Wedemeyer:

"No credit is due to me for discovering the existence of
classes in modern society, nor yet the struggle between
them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the
historical development of this struggle of the classes, and
bourgeois economists had discovered the economic anatomy of
those classes. What I did that was new was to prove:

1) that the existence of the classes is only bound up with
particular historical phases in the development of
production;

2) that the class struggle leads necessarily to the
dictatorship of the proletariat;

3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the
transition to the abolition of all classes and to a
classless society."


It is worth adding that he describes classless society in terms of "eliminating the 4 alls."

Avakian discusses Marx's 4 alls like this:

"Now, Marx made this famous statement about the goals of the socialist revolution, which sometimes the Maoists in China and we in our Party have represented in the short-hand form of the "four alls." And what Marx said was that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the necessary transit -- now let's see if I can get this right -- to the abolition of class distinctions generally, or all class distinctions, to the abolition of all the relations of productions on which those class distinctions rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to those production relations, and to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that correspond to those social relations. Well, that's a very pithy and at the same time very complex statement. There's a lot of materialism and a lot of dialectics concentrated in that statement. Obviously, we could spend a long time talking about it, and we don't have time to do that here. But I did want to say a few things about it.

First of all, you can see the materialism in this, in that he doesn't just talk about eliminating class differences, or class distinctions, but he immediately moves to talking about what underlies these class distinctions. He immediately roots it in the most fundamental thing of society, namely the system of production and the production relations through which the economy functions. Unless you uproot and transform that underlying system of production and its production relations, you can't abolish the oppressive differences in society, the inequalities in society, the class distinctions, and the other social inequalities.

But Marx talks about not only the production relations, but the social relations that correspond to them, such as the inequality and oppressive relation between men and women, which is very much bound up with these production relations of exploitation and oppression. You can think of other oppressive social relations as well, including in the sphere of politics and relations of political power in society.

And then Marx goes on to talk about how it is necessary to revolutionize all the ideas that correspond to these social relations (this more or less corresponds to the second radical rupture spoken of in the Communist Manifesto -- the radical rupture with all traditional ideas). And again, it's like the relation between the democratic intelligentsia and the shopkeepers. Ideas don't correspond to social relations only in a narrow, mechanical sense. They correspond in an ultimate and fundamental sense. In other words, when someone says, "I don't really think anybody can know what's true," that kind of agnosticism doesn't directly, in a narrow, mechanical sense, correspond to the production relations and social relations of capitalism. You can't transfer it in a narrow, mechanical, economist sense to say, well, that's a direct expression of the fact that the capitalist system of production is based on producing and distributing things as commodities and it has the particular feature that labor power itself, the ability to work, has become a commodity, and that people have to sell that in order to live, and that's the whole foundation of the exploitation of the proletariat."

http://rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/ava...ship_speech.htm (http://rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/avakian_democracy_dictatorship_speech.htm)

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Just out of curiosity, how much Marx have you read?

Enough.

[NovelGentry]

Enough.

right....

[bolshevik butcher]

To me to some up communism is this. It's better that poeple live on an equal basis and cooperate, rather than lving in a world constantly competing with itself, and where some is rich and some is extremely poor.

[synthesis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 08:33 PM

Just out of curiosity, how much Marx have you read?

Enough.
Why do I doubt that? :rolleyes:

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Counter-Corporate Jujitsu
What "great idea? I don't think that it was so special. If you could tone the bias a tad I really appreciate it.

I'm sorry that we disappoint you, but the fact is, we are biased.

We're also "one-sided" and frequently "intolerant".

It comes from that "changing the world" stuff.

Perhaps you imagine yourself in a luxury box on Mount Olympus...looking over the contending mortals below in a "god-like" fashion.

The view from the trenches is somewhat different.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[EneME]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 02:41 AM
Darwin discovered and explained the evolution of the species. Marx discovered and explained the evolution of the human society. Neither was determinists though, as many would suggest. But both were great scientists and did much to increase or knowledge and understanding of our world. Marx was not only one of the greatest (maybe the gretest) economics ever, but also a great historian, sociologist, philosopher etc.
excellent explanation...couldn't have said it better...