Tao,

Marx adopted from Hegel the somewhat romantic notion of Man as Homo Faber, Man the Maker. Alienation is, for Marx, then mans disconnection from that which he makes. In selling his labour he is 'alienated' from discretion in what he makes, the means for making it and from that which he makes which is not his and which he might in fact never see. The essence of his work is lost and in its place he receives money which dominates him and which he comes to worship.

So, according to Marx, your workers can never fulfill their human destiny no matter how much money they earn.

Bargaining for higher wages is an entirely free-enterprise activity serving no greater purpose than to increase the degree of alienation by 'selling their souls' for more of the 'alienated essence' of their existence. The more they earn, the more they desire the 'false fruits' of their labour the less likely they are to join in the revolution and risk losing their precious idol.

Marxs ideology is utterly imbued with a romantic nostalgia for an imagined past when man 'enjoyed the fruits of his labour'and thus 'fulfilled his human potential'. Pardon the tired old cliches. Perhaps he was thinking of a time when, as monkeys, we got to eat the berries we picked for ourselves. Well we'd all like to go back up into the trees and live out Marx's ideal life wouldnt we. Unfortunately we have kids to feed and educate so they can go to university and read Marx.... and for that we need money. Bad luck tao/Karl.. seems we can't live with it and we can't live without it.

Looking forward now to your next sh..load of drivel.

You may subscribe to idea that humans are a blank slate, entirely conscious beings that are able to shape their desires and override impulses and ways of tinking that are shaped by evolution. However, I do not. Nor do most psychologists.

As a perfect example of this, what did Fidel Castro and his bunch do as soon they took power in Cuba? What about Lenin and Trotsky (you obviously don't like Stalin) after the Russian Revolution? Did they immediately hand power over to the workers? Or did they set themselves up as leaders of the people, presumably because the workers needed reeducating as to what they really wanted?

Crap, total crap. Good day to you sir.

Oh terrific Bugsy and Waterboy,

The ultimate form of intelligent criticism - faecal abuse.

If you two are an example of the heights to which humanity is limited then maybe you are right. Or maybe your type will be bred out of existence by evolution - here's hoping.

However, I prefer to hold humans in higher esteem. I choose not to judge humanity by its lowest common denominator. Call me naive, romantic etc, I don't care. Far better than thinking we will all end up like you.

Ironically, I was only directing my comments to your philosophy. You have now chosen to make it personal by commenting on our intelligence, nice one.

I put it to you that in fact you do not hold humanity in high esteem at all, because you idealise what humanity and human nature should be and don't deal with it as it actually is. This is a common mistake among "socialists" (or Marxists or communists or whatever you want to call yourselves). It's a failed philosophy, we now know why, get over it. Move on.

Tao,

You mistake rejection of your ideology for personal rejection.
If the language is colourful that is simply in a spirit of robust debate and not directed personally.
While Marx may have made a profound contribution to our understanding of history and the way we do history...
his economic pontifications were just a load of cobblers and his social analysis has long since proved to be flawed.

waterboy and Bugsy: Nice one!

tao: I guess we disagree about the fundamentals of human nature. Personally, I don't believe that humans are much more than sophisticated apes who are motivated by fear, greed, envy, aggression, competiton and a whole lot of other "negative" emotions. Those have helped, and will continue to help, us survive. Of course, they also cause us plenty of problems too, but in the main, they've been tested by evolution. People are not driven by higher ideals, and the only reason people help each other is for mutual survival. However, people are essentially triblistic, and there's a point where "the other" becomes seen more and more as "the other". As such, people begin to see it as detrimental to their own survival to help such people.

People only have the luxury of the brotherhood of man when there are small numbers of them and low (or no) competition for resources (although there will always be competition for mates). After that, we're no different to lions, hyenas and jackals fighting over scraps at the end of the herbivores' migration.

Workers everywhere don't want an international brotherhood, they just want to be top dog. That's why (here comes Nietzsche again), all revolutions are doomed to fail. Once the slaves turn the tables, some of them inevitably become the new masters (secular or religious). Those who remain idealistic either get knifed in the back (individuals) or conquered/wiped out (groups of people). History has shown all of this time and again, and will continue to do so.