Tristan
Your earlier post looked like an inadvertent error – your meaning was clear

Marx made several empirically testable claims about future economic trends, including:

1. Real wages would fall and hours of work would rise
2. Skilled labour would decline and unskilled would increase
3. recessions would become deeper and more pronounced
4. The labour share of GDP would fall

Empirically,
1. Real wages have risen massively and hours of work have fallen
2. The proportion of unskilled workers in the workforce has fallen to all-time lows
3. The business cycle became more pronounced in the late 19th century and 1st half of the 20th, but since WW2 it has become much less so, with recession being shorter, shallower and less frequent. Even the GFC was mild compared to the 1890s or 1930s
4. There is no systemic trend upwards or downwards in the labour share of GDP. It rose between the 1940s and 1970s and has since declined, but is still above pre WW2 levels

Capitalism will doubtless end one day, as every past socioeconomic system has. Whether it collapses in apocalyptic chaos, as Marx expected (and Marxists seem to hope), or evolves into something else, time will tell. But Marx's theory of how and why it might collapse can be empirically disproven

Rhian:

You make a number of observations from a selection of Marxist predictions. Yes Marx got a lot wrong.Bernstein said as much, still considering himself Marxist.

The wage share of the economy HAS been shrinking for *many* decades and surely that demonstrates something. Early Marxists did not predict how far technological improvements would go. They also didn't anticipate the sustained and extreme exploitation of the Third World; or the domestic exploitation of the working poor.

Things they got right:

* The working class grew - the old petty bourgeoisie gradually shrank. Though the working class became divided within itself - the extent of which Marx did not predict. Hence: aristocracy of labour, working poor/underclass etc. Some consider the 'aristocracy of labour' to be 'middle class'; That at least fits in with Bernstein's scheme of the middle class dying in one form - only to be brought back in another...

* the business cycle remains, as does capitalist crisis (eg: the GFC), and built-in obsolescence, overproduction etc.

* Capitalism remains tied to exploitation/domination of the world market; still creating conflict... Hence Imperialism. (a notion shared with liberals like J.A.Hobson)

* There remains a tendency for profits to fall - though technology can ameliorate; and a tendency towards monopolism

* Deskilling is a tendency - but in a similar vein to Bernstein we can see that skill jobs disappear in one form - to be resurrected in another...

* Class struggle IS a driving force in history - But contra Marx there are other factors that meaningfully influence the course of history...

* Wages over the long term have fallen in terms of the proportion of the proceeds of labour being returned to labour... Wages still involve the paying of only a proportion of the proceeds of a workers' labour. There is still unpaid labour time.

* In capitalism - and indeed some other potential forms of modernity - alienation persists - either because of the nature of the work (dull, repetitive, physically demanding); and because of the division of labour and lack of creative control or expression...

Tristan,

From what I see of the Austro Marxist and Euro Marxists, they are fractious rabble with ideologies varying from rabidly Stalinist to mildly socialist.

There has not been a single Marxist success story, which is why most exist only in history.

So the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/more-proof-rich-getting-richer-poor-poorer-154916333.html

If you read this, you will see

Credit Suisse projects wealth for those in the bottom percentile will steadily fall over the next 60 years.

Geez, I wonder who predicted this?

Don’t verbal me Tristan. I never said anything about the First World War.

And you obviously do not understand Orwell. Orwell was an erudite but practical man. He did espouse Marxism and put his life where his mouth was. But he saw what Marxism inevitably comes: communism with all its attendant inhumanity. Animal Farm is a description of that process. It is you who does not understand Animal Farm

It is sophistry to say that Marxism is fine and distinguishable from the other collective and non-individual social forms. It isn’t, it is a precursor, a necessary pre-condition for the abhorrent progenies such as communism and, as I define above, fascism. In fact communism and fascism only differ to the extent fascism replaces class warfare with national warfare. Both are inextricably linked by a suppression of individuality and the veneration of the leader within fascism is closely mirrored with the adoration received by such communistic leaders as Stalin, ZeDong, Pol Pot and the grotesque North Korean ‘leaders’. So when Orwell and the other Marxists were fighting fascism they were actually fighting themselves to see which totalitarian group would take over.

We see this sort of sectarianism in all totalitarian forms especially Islam.

Tristan is obviously well read. But it is all Ivory Tower BS. The plebs are not going to sit down and have a debate about Fukuyama and Hegel. The leaders will amuse themselves in their parlours with this stuff while the Big Brother bureaucracy, which is inherent in Marxism, will create a grey goo among the proletariat.

And that’s what Marxism is, a grey goo; a big straight jacket on the human spirit. Only the apparatchiks and commissars will stand out like dung beetles.

Taxpayer funded education in Australia used to be vocational. Wyndham has a lot to answer for because from his generalised education principles a generation of useless, self-indulgent academics have sprung up claiming expertise to justify their egos and support for abhorrent social forms like Marxism and islam.

Old zyggy; wants Marxism tested in Uni’s. Take it to Catallaxy for a real test you coward.

Tristan: As you say, I am sympathetic to Popper's critique of Hegal and Marx ... but I do not see myself as a Marxist and neither did Popper ...

I have some commitment to some social democrat values and agendas, and some commitment to some Christian democrat values and agendas: you'd probably regard me as confused in not adopting a consolidated single value single issue single ideology commitment!

Let's discuss a common situation and the remedies Popper, were he alive today, would regard as moot and just remedies to that situation ...

Imagine an employee whose employer offers inadequate financial consideration, compared to community standards conceded in the community wherein the workplace does business. And, in addition, compared with the community standards, the employee's conditions are substandard. In short, the employee is not receiving valuable consideration for their labour ...

Now, Popper was very committed to liberal civil and political rights. Popper would see it as legitimate for the various employees of said employer to form an association with objects to remedy their situation. And, if need be, being employees, and not slaves or serfs, to resign en masse and stand around outside their former employer's business premises with banners and leaflets advocating that third parties boycott said business for not paying its employees properly! That said, especially after he drifted rightwards after arriving in England just after world war two, he was opposed, as the song would have it, to employees having the right to strike effectively. In other words, criminal damage of the employer's property, physical assaults on the employer or the employer's managers, these tactics were subject to proscription as violating Popper's commitments to the civil and political rights of the employer.

It is some years since I have read Popper on this subject. However, this is my summary of his views, based on my having read, closely or quickly, no fewer than ten separate books he wrote on politics and philosophy ...

Piecemeal social engineering, done de-centralised by individuals by free organization, he could support.