God the arrogance is not just dripping off these Marxists/Communists, it pouring off so hard, it could flood lake Eyre. They obviously believe they would be the masters, [note not leaders], if anyone was ever stupid enough to resurrect such a failed ideology.

Obviously Bolt understands Marxism better than Tristan. If Tristan, & the other posters here, actually had any idea, they would run a mile from, rather promote the stuff.

Marxist theory is a thought bubble with no connection to the real world.

The only way you can create a Socialist/Marxist utopia is by eliminating all those who do not support it! This unfortunately, leads to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russian, and Pol Pot's Cambodia. There is a one curse greater than the old Chinese one, "May you live in interesting times!" it is "May you fall into the hands of those, who know what is good for you!"

The system championed by Andrew may not be the best in the world, but it is the best we have, and it has stood the test of time. When someone establishes a Marxist utopia which does not include Gulags, and massive repression I might be more inclined to listen to you.

Capitalism is a lie. The free market only exists for workers and small business.Currently some people who believe in Marxism want the Govt to run everything and believe the free market is to blame.In reality the market is not free with LIBOR (interest rate rigging) share market and currency rigging using derivatives etc.

We live in an age of enormous cartels aided and abetted by a corrupt banking system which corrupts our Govts and owns our productivity by virtue of creating from nothing,the money to equal our toil as debt.

Worse still is all our inflationary money gets created as debt,thus the world drowns in a sea of debt.87 people on this planet have more wealth than the poorest 3500 million people or half the world's pop.

We don't need to give economic belief systems a name because good ideas often get pidgeon holed with stereo typed catagorys.

It should be all be about fairness,freedom and making Govt small as possible.

This cannot be achieved unless there is a good constitution like the USA used to have.Govts should issue new currency, not private central banks like the US Federal Reserve.

Thanks Jay, that makes for interesting reading. I would guess that the demographic pattern would be broadly similar with supporters of Australia’s populist right-wing parties (One Nation, Katter etc), perhaps with the exception that religion has less influence nowadays

One thing that many seem to overlook is that the great majority of despotic regimes throughout history have been from the extreme Right and not from the Left - South America, Europe, Africa and now the Middle East.

Also the rise of a Communist State has always been the result of the revolutionary overthrow of a very oppressive right wing despot. Vietnam may be an exception but that was a response to unwanted colonialism.

Otherwise it doesn't happen spontaneously for ideological reasons.

What happens to them over time is another matter but - like the "free" world - they become corrupted from within and decline.

Any regime, once in power - does all it can to remain there. It's no different here.

That's the way it's always been and will probably always be.

Wobbles,

We had an election last September. Now we have a different government.

Hi Foxy,

I was born in the middle of the war and raised on the far left - after all, I was named after one of its stars. But I've come to believe that any Utopian theory, any theory of a perfect world, is bound to degenerate into fascism, since there are bound to be groups or classes who are never going to fit in and who, in fact, contaminate the ideals that those Utopians are working so hard for, so they - regrettably - have to be 'extracted'. So a huge 'extraction' apparatus has to be set up to protect the Utopia.

This applies to Plato's 'Republic', to More's and all the various Utopias of the Middle Ages, and to the seemingly more modern theories-in-practice, including applied Marxism, applied Fascism and applied Nazism.

Instead, I've come to believe, fervently, that we must build on democracy, with all its imperfections, and if there is ever to be any sort of socialism, then it must be firmly based on democratic foundations. Until then, we must defend democratic forms of participation, the rule of law, equal rights, even the right to innovate, work hard and make a buck too.

Marx also supported the principle - more in theory than in practice - that productive work was a cornerstone of future societies, that such work was honourable. Conversely, loafers, free-loaders and rent-seekers should be penalised in any future, better, society, not by 'extracting' them but by encouraging them to actually work. I'll go along with that.

Love,

Joe
www.firstsources.info