tao... you still haven't provided real answers here, as to implementation.

Let's say you were elected tomorrow, as a federal MP with a decent bit of clout in modifying Australian policy.

What moves would you honestly make?

And if you would prefer not to make changes from a government position, then fine. What position would you prefer?

What practical actions can you suggest? Have you got anything other than rhetoric?

If you want to debate your point, you first need to make people believe it is a possibility. Otherwise, it is little more than railing against the status quo.

Tao, great response. Thankyou.

I appreciate the Marxist philosophy of moving right away from the profit motive. But I just can’t see that it could ever be embraced in Australia, or that it is necessary to divorce ourselves from the profit incentive.

“The profit-system and all of its laws and mechanisms to protect private-property and exploitation must be dismantled completely.”

No I don’t think so. I can see Australia becoming much more socialistic, but never to the extent of dismantling the profit-based system or laws protecting private property.

“It is impossible for social-needs to predominate in a system where the profit-motive rules”

I don’t think the profit motive is a bad thing per se. Rather, a system where there is no profit incentive and where everyone is basically equal despite highly unequal abilities and motivation just seems fundamentally flawed.

Within a democratic system both the profit motive and strong socialistic ideals should be able to coexist. The trick is to get the community and government to strike the right balance.

Some moves have been made in this direction, but as you say it lags far behind what is needed.

It is not a matter of dumping capitalism in favour of Marxism, nor of reforming capitalism, it is a matter of reforming our brand of democracy, so that capitalism can be kept under control… and a much better social-needs regime can be implemented.

continued

It seems that the only way that this reform is going to occur is as a result of a series of significant stings. That is, social upheavals of sufficient magnitude to make governments implement the necessary legislation to prevent them from happening again, and for the general community and the big end of town to accept the need for this, and not vote them out of office.

After a few significant stings, we will all hopefully realise the imperative of developing a sustainable paradigm. And once this is in peoples’ headspace, it will just follow automatically….with our capitalist system intact and a much better brand of democracy to keep it in its place.

The political significance of social imperatives will slowly rise up as the general community becomes more concerned about the future. This will compete directly with the profit-at-all-costs pressures that governments feel from big business and economic growthists.

But more importantly, it will lead to modifications within business in the balance between short-term profit and long-term security and between profit at all costs and the generation of a good image as a worthy corporate citizen. Once this takes hold, I can envisage many businesses gearing themselves up for the longer term, even if it is at considerable loss of short-term profits.

The profit motive will take on a longer term vision.

Once we get it straight in our collective heads, the profit motive can actually work in favour of us reaching sustainability.

The trouble is though that we will apparently need various upheavals to make it happen, and the momentum is bound to trail way behind what we really should be launching fully into right now.

It also seems that these upheavals have to fully manifest themselves. No amount of warning seems to work. This can’t be more obvious than with the water crisis in all our major population centres, which still have absurd unmitigated high population growth!

I can’t see how a Marxist revolution or any other political structure/strategy can speed up the effort towards sustainability.

Tao, you just don't get it lol.

If you look at our rise in standard of living, its largely
happened because of innovation and the corresponding rise
in productivity. You have all sorts of so called "crazy"
people out there in the real world, doing their thing, being
creative and inventive.

90% of those people might fail, but the few% who do have
great ideas, are people who change the world. Their freedom
to innovate, freedom to raise capital to prove the world wrong,
their freedom to do their thing, is why we all have a better
standard of living.

That kind of innovation simply does not happen, without
a capitalist system. Once bureaucrats take control, its a
disaster. Waste and lack of innovation are the order of the
day.

In that sense, the small amount of profit made compared to
turnover, becomes irrelevant. Losses from lack of innovation
and lack of caring about waste are such, that the system
collapses. We've seen that time and time again.

Thats why under your idealistic theories, it lands up as
a lose lose situation for everyone expect the few who have
the power in their sweaty little hands.

Thats also why competition is required in a market economy.
Without it, you have cosy little monopolies developing.
Thats exactly why consumers are the largest beneficiaries
of globalisation, the consumer become king, voting with
their wallet, every day.

Without innovation, you are not going to solve the world's
long term problems either. Mind you, with population increasing
by 80 million a year, why should I care, until people get
real about ever increasing world population?

Shorbe,

“Now let's get out of theoretical caricatures and into the real world.”

How about you actually get out of superficial caricatures and into examining the real world. Start by examining what socialism, or Marxism, is instead of what YOU THINK it is.

Marxist theory conceives of communism as an international (or probably more precisely a world community in which there are no nations), classless society in which the state has withered away i.e. there is no state. From this conception it follows that there has never been a “communist state” – the term is an oxymoron. It seems reasonable that, if we are going to be discussing the consequences of “Marxism”, then we ought to be using Marx’s conception of socialism and communism.

You however, take as your starting point the “assumption” that certain past or existing states or regimes are “communist” or “socialist” or “Marxist”. This “assumption” is not based on an analysis of Marxism or the actual nature of the states or regimes you are lumping into the category “Marxist”, it is based on your opinion. Your argument (or what passes for argument when not simply derogatory attacks) then flows from that opinionated assumption. You are using a different definition (or opinionated assumption) to the Marxist conception, which definition you insist I must accept.

But why should I, having actually made a study of Marxism (albeit limited at this stage), accept your impressionistic opinionated assumption when it is abundantly clear to me from your superficial arguments that you have not made any such study, or really attempted to understand Marxism at all?

Marxist theory is above all a scientific method of analysis and a guide to action. In a scientific discussion, if the molecular formula of water is H2O, confusion will ensue if someone believes that the composition of water is H2O2 (which is actually hydrogen peroxide – or bleach). And in practice, there will be a remarkably different result if you apply H2O to your hair, or H2O2. It is important to know the difference.

Yet you don’t appear to want to know whether or not there is a difference. To you it is, as you say, an “intellectual pissing contest” which you don’t even care about “winning” because your ideology is “omnipresent” - i.e. you’ve picked the “winning” side and you’re running with it, so you don’t have to even bother seriously thinking about whether what you are saying is logically consistent or based on facts.

Yet you arrogantly expect me and others to accept your opinionated assumptions or “caricatures” of Marxism when you have admitted that you don’t think seriously about their validity.

And the fact is that it is not just an “intellectual pissing contest”. There are billions of people in the world who suffer daily. There are people on this thread and elsewhere who are really concerned about the state of the world, and care about humanity. Marx spent his entire life studying and analysing social and economic forces in an endeavour to assist humanity in its quest to solve its problems. Many others have devoted their lives to the same cause, and died for it.

You have expressed on many occasions your hatred of humanity, and your indifference to human suffering. You, in your imagined financial security, don’t care enough to seriously examine a theory which has already had a huge impact on the world, and may hold the key to transforming it, and instead facetiously and uninformedly deride it. Why on earth should anybody take you seriously?