Foxy "I'm merely puzzled by your lack of
comprehension skills."

Foxy, you just keep making statements to support your view which are, clearly lazy and erroneous generalisations.....

things like

"Totalitarianism is a twentieth-century phenomenon,"

which ignores the fact that Gengis Khan lived in thirteenth century.

and statements like "As a result, the "ownership" and the "control" of
the means of production are no longer identical."

which, in the context you used it, implied that "ownership" and "control" was exercised solely by the same individuals in Marx's day.

whereas, the truth was - joint stock companies and Stock exchanges, were operating and separating control from ownership, 250 years before Marx was writing.


and " "Marxism and Communism are totally different things."

- that would only be true if one fatuously pretended that one can separate different phases of the same life-cycle.

Ie just as the common house fly lays eggs, which turn into maggots, which then turn into house flies -

so too what starts out as the egg in an experiment of applied "Marxist theory", always ends up as juice socialist maggot before turning into a nasty, disease laden "communist" house fly

the "lack of skill" is not some shortcoming in my comprehension

the "lack of skill" is in your poor delivery, which is either completely deficient in research or the acknowledgement of historical facts.

All I've been trying to rationalise is the fact that
Karl Marx spent most of his life writing about social
class. ' - Foxy

Foxy is on target here (Hello, Foxy). If Marx's histo-political thesis was a PhD study his contribution would be argued that "class" as a determining construct has been missed by the extant literature of his time. This is true of any "ism" up until the nineteenth century. The separation of the "have's" and "have not's" is a consistent feature through-out history. Moreover, one should recall that among the nineteenth century intelligentsia, political economics had a social agenda. I would suggest that Market Capitalism was given a boast by the Great Depression, because sellers had to compete for consumerts to survive (well, that is another story).

Like our friends George and Foxy, I am not pro-Marx and definitely opposed to the aberrations of Marx that lead to despots. Yet, Marx could said to be concerned about social conditions of era and his outlook on the world mechanistic, typical of his time.

Also, a quick walk through ant serous book on political philosophy will find support for George's assertion of Marxism being embedded in Utopianism.

"Which means the separation of ownership and control was a fact for centuries before young Karl was spat into the world." Stern

No exactly. What is happening here is that capitalists are being protected from risk. A "Limited" company becomes an artificial whipping boy so the capitalist will assume risk and avoid liquidation. Bankruptcy laws go back to a similar period for a similar reason. In the Age of Exploration and Colonisation, ships started to sink, and, the wealthy risked becoming disempowered and impoverished. The system/laws were adapted to protect the owners of capital: Somewhat consistent with Marx's framework.

/cont...

The so called "revolution" was an unfortunate but necessary intermediate step, because those in power would resist. Afterwhich, there would be a classless (utopian-like) society.

Again, I am not defending Marx, rather trying to present what he actual said in context with his world-view (as George would say). In fact, one highlight of my life was to sit on a (Education) committee with a retired Deputy of Commerce of the United States of Americia. My peers were hardly Marxist-Leninists or Communists. Neither, am I.

Stern,

Have you ever read Dickens?

Oliver,

"Have you ever read Dickens."

Yes, Stern - I've also got a rather jolly book titled "Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution in Britain" by E. Royston Pike. I'll lend it to you if you like. You may then have a better understanding of where Marx was coming from.

Dear Poirot,

Thank you fo your kind offer. Truth is I am way behind in my reading and working on other tasks. Appreciate the thought though.

Marx was not alone. We also have the likes of Robert Owen and Edward Bellamy. Dig deeper, we find Saint-Simonand Charles Fourier. Fourier is believed to have influenced both Emerson and Thoreau. As early as the mid 1600s, James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana) saw the private ownership of land as the main cause of social conflict.

Large profitable capitalism required a break from famililism. This break initially occurred in Germany and was emulated in the US, wherein family dynasties were replaced by highly capitalised companies run by professional managers. Economies of scale and mass production ultimately supported an educated working class, innovation and Middle Class wealth (demand). The twentieth centurry, as George notes,was a different kettle of fish to the nineteenth century

Dear Oliver,

"Human Docs" is a particularly informative read.

I have Robert Owen's report on Lanark. I believe he was one of the first to come up with a comprehensive plan (for mass education) to get the children out of the factories (since a huge dollop of the population had been lured to the towns) and yet prepare them for the "mechanical" life - as you say a break with famililism.