something like morality would just be icing on the cake, right?
:snipe:
Lykourgos posted:what did you use to conclude that "capitalism is an immoral system"?
I think to a lot of people (communists) the idea of communism is itself a moral system, it is a set of values that says the minimization of collective suffering is an inherent good. Which is basically utilitarian, but communism implies a humanist calculus in which the lack of opportunity, community support, human social interaction, safety, security, leisure time, family time, etc is the ultimate cause of avoidable manmade suffering. Therefore any political structure which deprives potential capitalists from the opportunity to amass surplus will necessarily be good in the long run.
The counterargument that capitalism can do it better actually is not historically true, which is clear if you include in your view all the exploited and killed workers globally.
If economics included the "externalities" of human happiness (i.e. the effects of the things listed above), and all the various psychological studies that show the effects of the constant underlying severe anxiety that is caused by being economically insecure, communism would consistently be the obvious right answer to how best to organize ourselves to maximize our long term happiness, intelligence and even productivity. Expropriating surplus has a clear long term cost, it's just ignored.
Attempting to reduce Marxism to base analytical premises wrongly characterizes intellectual activity as occurring in isolation from the struggles constitutive of its social and political conjuncture, and at the same time fails to intervene in that conjuncture.
Grumblefish, in essence, would like to twist Marxism from a systematic method of revolutionary transformation into a set of discrete analytical theses that stand or fall on the basis of their consistency with anglo philosophy or vulgar empiricism.
Counterpoint: reality.
c_man posted:.custom275461{}Lykourgos posted:what did you use to conclude that "capitalism is an immoral system"?
yeah i read it and agreed with it but criticism of capitalism doesn't imply that communism is the solution, and the history of the 20th century proves that communism helped lots of people but was ultimately defeated. perhaps because the revolutionary force that would abolish all bourgeois morality and systems of hierarchy and domination ended up reproducing those structures anyways. that doesn't mean that communism can't recur on a large scale and succeed in its goals, but it does mean you need to mount a pretty coherent defense for how your new revolutionary program will be different.
I agree with the thread title, struggle is effective only through it's failure
NoFreeWill posted:c_man posted:.custom275461{}Lykourgos posted:what did you use to conclude that "capitalism is an immoral system"?
yeah i read it and agreed with it but criticism of capitalism doesn't imply that communism is the solution, and the history of the 20th century proves that communism helped lots of people but was ultimately defeated. perhaps because the revolutionary force that would abolish all bourgeois morality and systems of hierarchy and domination ended up reproducing those structures anyways. that doesn't mean that communism can't recur on a large scale and succeed in its goals, but it does mean you need to mount a pretty coherent defense for how your new revolutionary program will be different.
lol
NoFreeWill posted:the history of the 20th century proves that communism helped lots of people but was ultimately defeated.
gyrofry posted:The crucial feature of Marxist method is that it is not a reflection in thought of the world, a crude materialism, but rather an intervention in the world concerned with human praxis.
Attempting to reduce Marxism to base analytical premises wrongly characterizes intellectual activity as occurring in isolation from the struggles constitutive of its social and political conjuncture, and at the same time fails to intervene in that conjuncture.
Grumblefish, in essence, would like to twist Marxism from a systematic method of revolutionary transformation into a set of discrete analytical theses that stand or fall on the basis of their consistency with anglo philosophy or vulgar empiricism.
Counterpoint: reality.
If Marxists are pragmatic and judge the merit of ideologies and political systems by their accomplishments, then why are 95% of the Marxists on this board so fond of Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and other failed ideologies
Lessons posted:gyrofry posted:The crucial feature of Marxist method is that it is not a reflection in thought of the world, a crude materialism, but rather an intervention in the world concerned with human praxis.
Attempting to reduce Marxism to base analytical premises wrongly characterizes intellectual activity as occurring in isolation from the struggles constitutive of its social and political conjuncture, and at the same time fails to intervene in that conjuncture.
Grumblefish, in essence, would like to twist Marxism from a systematic method of revolutionary transformation into a set of discrete analytical theses that stand or fall on the basis of their consistency with anglo philosophy or vulgar empiricism.
Counterpoint: reality.If Marxists are pragmatic and judge the merit of ideologies and political systems by their accomplishments, then why are 95% of the Marxists on this board so fond of Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and other failed ideologies
If Marxists are pragmatic and judge the merit of ideologies and political systems by their accomplishments, then why are 95% of the Marxists on this board so fond of Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and other failed ideologies
tpaine posted:Crow posted:Is your entire life like a shopping catalog? But everything is broken? Do you know where you bought these thoughts? That Encounter magazine looks so cute on you
If Marxists are pragmatic and judge the merit of ideologies and political systems by their accomplishments, then why are 95% of the Marxists on this board so fond of Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and other failed ideologies
Lessons posted:If Marxists are pragmatic and judge the merit of ideologies and political systems by their accomplishments, then why are 95% of the Marxists on this board so fond of Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and other failed ideologies
Where to begin. For starters, your statistics are out of date
Crow posted:Is your entire life like a shopping catalog? But everything is broken? Do you know where you bought these thoughts? That Encounter magazine looks so cute on you
yeah it turns out the soviet union is alive and well, i forgot that facts is propoganda
NoFreeWill posted:Crow posted:
Is your entire life like a shopping catalog? But everything is broken? Do you know where you bought these thoughts? That Encounter magazine looks so cute on you
yeah it turns out the soviet union is alive and well, i forgot that facts is propoganda
the soviet union survived 70 years of continuous siege by the ruthless mass of western imperialist forces. do your criteria for a true/successful ethical system and/or state ultimately just boil down to crude might makes right? how does the survival of a state figure in the slightest into the objective morality horseshit you've been peddling. what are you even arguing for at this point. don't you only meat.
shriekingviolet posted:NoFreeWill posted:Crow posted:
Is your entire life like a shopping catalog? But everything is broken? Do you know where you bought these thoughts? That Encounter magazine looks so cute on you
yeah it turns out the soviet union is alive and well, i forgot that facts is propogandathe soviet union survived 70 years of continuous siege by the ruthless mass of western imperialist forces. do your criteria for a true/successful ethical system and/or state ultimately just boil down to crude might makes right? how does the survival of a state figure in the slightest into the objective morality horseshit you've been peddling. what are you even arguing for at this point. don't you only meat.
If you look at it from a normal persons perspective, the Soviet Union collapsed of its own accord after 50 years of peace with the West. Same for Maoist China. Maybe you don't agree with that but it's the broad perception and you aren't going to change it.
it's pretty funny to imagine that our smug first year minor in philosophy abortion here is one of them though
shriekingviolet posted:well sure, as much as my stubborn optimism has trouble believing that even the dumbest american would be stupid enough to believe the cold war counts as peace, i guess that there are a lot of folks out there who simultaneously believe that ronald reagan defeated communism and that it collapsed of its own mysterious accord.
it's pretty funny to imagine that our smug first year minor in philosophy abortion here is one of them though
nice straw man, don't try it again.
Lessons posted:If you look at it from a normal persons perspective,
catchphrase
