Christopher Warren
You are right that Marx predicted that real wages would fall, but entirely wrong to say that this actually happened. The link to the ILO that you provide shows exactly the opposite of what you claim – real wages have risen in the past 10 years, despite the worst recession since the 1930s. It is true that the labour share of GDP has fallen in many developed countries in recent years (hence labour productivity has risen faster than real wages, as the chart shows), and in some countries real wages have fallen. But the chart shows that, across the developed countries as a whole, growth in real GDP has more than offset this effect to allow real growth in wages.

In the longer term, real wages have grown enormously since the industrial revolution, and are vastly higher than in Marx’s day. This paper gives a long-term perspective on real wage growth in the UK. It finds that a craftsman’s daily wage increased in real terms by more than 600% between the 1850s and 2000s. It makes for fascinating reading:
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/ClarkJPE2005.pdf
(p.52)

Marx also predicted that crises in capitalism would become more severe and more frequent. Again, the opposite has happened. Even the GFC looks minor compared to the economic crises of the nineteenth century, and the GFC was the worst recession in the developed economies for 60 years.

Tristan reminds us that even old Marxism saw state ownership as temporary, and indeed Engels famously predicted the “withering away of the state”. I suppose it depends on whether one believes this will actually happen under a Communist regime. I think it unlikely.

Come on Tristan, your problem with Bolt, & what frightens the daylights out of you is he understands Marxism all too well, & is articulate in exposing it with all it's many flaws.

You even expose them yourself in singing what you think of as its qualities "there would be a host of consumers and producers co-operatives. Some of these would involve state-aid but not state control". Sounds just like those aboriginal housing co-operatives, that have cost us billions & housed bugger all.

You go on, "The co-ops could also involve local communities and other stakeholders. eg: in the case of SPC it would have involved producers, the Shepparton local community and growers". The growers did own it, & got out because it was not working.

Tristan you Marxists should go back to quietly penetrating capitalism & undermining it from within, as you have for decades, since the fall or Russian communism, you were doing much better that way.

When you come out into the open, you are lost. Every time you put fingers to keyboard, you expose your total failure to understand anything much. These group enterprises just won't work in practice. All these groups & committees are a recipe for catastrophe. As we all know the poor camel is a horse designed by a committee, & that is what Marxism & socialism give us, a camel, & a lame one at that, when what you need a to pull a plow is a draft horse.

Like Russia's copy of the concord, thing Marxist look OK from a distance, but don't get too close, because mate, up close, they just don't fly.

I think you have proved one thing, Mr Ewins, for sure and certain.

And that is, that Andrew Bolt is certainly not the only one who "does not understand Marxism".

Moreover, judging by the posts from people who claim to actually "understand" Marxism, there appear to be as many theories on what Marxism is, as there are Marxists.

With which you seem to agree...

>>...some Marxists are hard materialists and determinists. Others think that ethics is secondary to 'the objective reality of class struggle' and socialist transition. I don't fall into either of those camps. In that sense I admit to being a 'Revisionist' - but still very much a liberal socialist. I am also influenced by radical social liberalism...<<

Clear as mud. Then you make it even worse, with this offering:

>>My vision is a mix of natural public monopolies and strategic socialisation; alongside consumer and producer co-operatives, democratic collective capital mobilisation, self-employment, and co-determination. But also a domestic economy engaging with the global economy - open to the best innovations it has to offer.<<

As a political manifesto, this sits right up there with "trust me, I can fix it".

Long on reassurance, but short on reality.

Let's criticise Austro-Marxism ...

Let's consider Karl Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies", volume II

When this work hit the bookstands, one offended English intellectual wrote a long reply, "In Defence of Plato", so offended were some of the right wingers at Popper's spirit of moderation, compromise, pragmatism, and small-l liberalism ...

Chapter 13, Sociological Determinism, p81:-

"Yet this method of penetrating, dividing, and confusing the humanitarian camp and of building up a largely unwitting and therefore doubly effective intellectual fifth column achieved its greatest success only after Hegelianism had established itself as the basis of a truly humanitarian movement: of Marxism, so far the purest, the most developed and the most dangerous form of historicism."

Popper objected to historical prophecy ... any representation of any author leader party or class as fulfilling historical destiny ... any use of horror or hope in book titles (e.g. "Imperialism as the Last Stage of Capitalism", Lenin, "The Future Of Socialism", Crosland) ...

Popper abandoned Marxism in his late teenage years. He grew up in Vienna during world war one, and eventually couldn't stomach the Hegelianism any more. I believe he later blamed this Hegelianism for the Weimar horror film industry, in part causing the 1932, 1933 election results ...

Some might reply that ideology is the allocation of blame, that I've got involved in historical blame, and that I should move on ... but the question I raise for my readers remains, is this use of hope and horror in book titles, leader's speeches, organizational social control, or in Hollywood movies whether these methods of moving people emotionally will prove constructive in the long run?

Instead, why not openly debate values, societal outcomes, visions of utopia; thenceforth develop agendas and platforms with the active involvement of the followers? Such open ended debate might not fit in with the plans of the top leaders ... My faith is that a wide ranging open ended debate would lead to better outcomes, would raise the standard, and lead to higher outcomes in terms of educational opportunity where everyone would receive leadership levels of education!

Tristan,

As I understand it [cf. Hugh Thomas' 'Spanish civil war'] POUM was constantly attacked by the Community Party in Spain, urged on by Stalin.

Marx never experienced a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' but we have, in total, hundreds of years of experience of it, or of its inevitable perversions, in Russia, China, the Eastern European countries, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Ethiopia, Benin, even Burkina Faso. Dare I say it, Zimbabwe ? And what should we have learnt from those dreadful experiments ?

What should rule, ideology or real experience ? Surely once an ideology is put into practice, and goes belly-up, then we should learn that there may be something wrong, un-real, deluded, about the ideology ?

How come in every case, that 'dictatorship' morphs into rule by the self-proclaimed party of the proletariat,

i.e. the ruling group of the party of the dictatorship of the proletariat ?

i.e. rule by the hardest man in the ruling group in the party claiming to represent the dictatorship of the proletariat ?

Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Ceauscescu, Kadar, Mengistu, et al. ? Yanukovich is, after all, a thuggish child of the 'revolution', as was Milosevitch. Each with their vast apparatuses of repression, extermination and incarceration. Power to the people ? Feh !

A bit like the Mafia, really: a dictatorial power-group, with a captive population, a society in which the only way up is through the power-group, and in which the rule of law means nothing, and so any crime is permissible, in the name of the group - Mafia or Communist Part, it doesn't matter.

Capitalism certainly has its grave faults, but as a product of democratic principles, we have to live with it. But if it can be further 'democratised', thanks to the vigilance of the populace in defending and broadening their rights and powers, then that may be one way to go.

I fear that 'democratic socialism' may also be an oxymoron :(

Joe
www.firstsources.info

You've just gotta love the stupidity and starry eyed pixieitis of the Marxists.

They're all fluttering around mouthing grand schemes and Utopian visions and while they've got their focus on the stars in come the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot, Zedong and then they're up against the wall with the rest of the useful idiots.

Marxism ALWAYS turns into tyranny and Utopians are the most dangerous people on earth because they think they have the blueprint for perfection.

Capitalism, on the other hand makes no such promises; it thrives with a minimalist government and respects privacy. As soon as those 2 imperatives are encroached you can be sure some of the stary-eyed utopian ratbags and do-gooders are interfering.

I have never yet met a bureaucrat or apparatchik who knows as much as me or knows better about what is better for me yet Marxism is predicated on these self-appointed visionaries assuming they have superior skills. And this superiority is never tested in any merit based fashion, it is always declared.

The author tells me Animal Farm was written by George Orwell. I knew that; it is the best analysis of the failure of the utopian vision of Marxism. The tragedy is there are always new generations of utopian nuisances who want to prove Orwell wrong.

Speaking of nuisances Mr Warren has defaulted to the usual leftist abuse. The left are spoilt children given to tantrums when thwarted. Go and have your nappy changed Mr Warren.