Squeers
“I think Marx was right in almost everything, at least right in terms of the materialist paradigm” … “[Marx] didn't see a transition to socialism/communism as part of some inevitable material dialectic.”

I think you are showing that you don’t understand Marx’s theory.

Marx’s whole theory was that, by an inevitable material dialectic [ie *material* conditions would cause one economic system to supersede the one before] capitalism was supposedly destined to give way to communism – abolition of private property and withering away of the state and all that.

His entire reason for calling it “scientific” socialism was constituted by his claim that he had discovered supposed inexorable “laws of history”. (He admired Darwin and wanted to construct a similar type grand progression beloved of Victorian-era types.)

That is the reason why Marx never went into the details of how production would be organized after the revolution in control over the means of production – because the change was *inevitable*. Anyone who questioned it was merely being “unscientific”. There was no point in discussing it, since because it was inevitable, there was no need for anyone to consciously do anything about it in order to make it happen and besides, since by the fact that communism came after capitalism, it was automatically a better system.

So Marx contradicted himself when he later wrote that the point of philosophy was not to understand the world but to change it, because his economic theory was that the change comes about by dialectical materialism – in other words, the “material forces of production”, bring about the conditions of their own antithesis. (The handmill produced the feudal age, the steam mill the capitalist age, and all that.)

So to believe Marx’ theory is right, you have to believe that your ideology is given by your economic class, and your economic class is given by your relation to the material forces of production. It’s materialist in the sense that material forces *cause* the superstructure, which includes ideology. In other words, the *tools you work with* *cause* your conscious thoughts which comprise only class ideology.

That’s right, his theory really is that daft. Proletarian “material forces of production” (tools) determine proletarian economic class, which determines proletarian ideology; bourgeois class m.f.o.p. determine bourgeois ideology, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Marx was the ultimate determinist.

So it doesn’t explain
a) how Marx or Engels, both bourgeoises, could possibly have proletarian ideology
b) how physics or chemistry could be right or wrong according to what class ideology produced it
c) how factually incorrect ideology was ever more useful to anyone – for example the bourgeoisie - than factually correct ideology
d) how you can possibly think this load of garbled nonsense is right.

You don’t even understand Marx’s theory, and here you are prattling on about how his predictions were correct. None of his predictions were correct. He predicted that his supposed “iron law of wages” would result in the proletarian class getting bigger and bigger, and poorer and poorer. The opposite happened. Living standards of the workers rose to the highest levels in the history of the world!

He predicted that the proletarian revolution would start in the most industrially advanced western countries. The opposite happened.

He predicted that communism would replace capitalism *internationally* without anyone having to consciously do anything. He predicted that communism would be more physically productive than capitalism. He predicted that the state would wither away. He predicted that under communism, the workers would lose the distinction between leisure and work.

How could he have been more wrong?

And now we are in the midst of economic crises and social chaos caused by *governments’* deliberate manipulation of the money supply and price – the nerve centre of a capitalist economy – motivated by Keynesian theory resting on Marxist premises – the opposite of a free market - and all the empty-heads rush out saying it proves Marx right!

It is obvious that you and Poirot don’t understand the first thing either about the economics or social theory that you criticize, nor the nutty Marxist theories that are the only basis of the slogans you substitute for reasoned argument

Well thank you Loudmouth/Joe I can see that you do have a real life and an educational basis for you views.

My interest came from my father who ran away to the bush back in the '40's to be a drover. He developed a real respect for the indigenous,and their philosophy. He also was able to socialise with the 'squatters', because he was educated and knew which fork to use, and from their stories he was convinced that 'extermination raids' on the indigenous were pretty common.

I think that an awful lot of the complexity and beauty of traditional practice was lost fairly quickly after whites arrived. It was a very delicate system. Of course I do have my rose coloured glasses on. (I like to think of myself, some days, as Pollyanna with attitude). But I think it's difficult to sort out from behaviour last century, what is traditional and what is an impoverished dysfunctional remnant.

I don't want to go back to living like that at all but I do think that it is significant that their culture was so stable and that therefore there could be something about the philosophy that governed their society, that might be relevant for us.

I used the word legendary with reference to Sparta in an ironic sense. The point being that human societies have been so very different and hence human nature is not easy to define or understand. You know it's not all guns, germs and steel as Jared Diamond suggests.

And maybe Belly is right when he says they have all failed but they all might have something to offer us as we all try to improve on what we have, which really is not that bad.

It's been a great thread. Thanks Poirot, and also every one else.

Peter Hume said;
The opposite happened. Living standards of the workers rose to the
highest levels in the history of the world!

Could that have happened if oil had not been produced in quantity from
the end of the 19th century ?

Peter,

So your excuse for the fundamental instability, recurrent crises and social chaos engendered by capitalism is that it's not really capitalism at all - but something that might be termed "Marxist-Keynesianism"...interesting.....

Peter,
I said above that Marx was poorly and misunderstood, and you've illustrated the point form me, thanks.

Marx nowhere uses the phrase "dialectical materialism", nor "economic determinism" and to the extent that his thought has been distorted, by "Marxists", into some form of scientism or naturalism, Engels and others were to blame. Marx famously said he was not a Marxist, and was above the admittedly dogmatic intellectualisations of his thought that have ensued. But I've debated these issues with you and others before and don't propose to do so again. I will only assure anyone interested that what you've said in your posts, Peter, is wrong from beginning to end. Anyone who cares to do a little open-minded research and reading on "Marx's" "historical materialism" (lots of good stuff available on line), can easily appraise herself of the truth.

In the meantime, Poirot and others, I've just come across this article by a favourite author of mine:
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Praise-of-Marx/127027.
I haven't checked but trust it hasn't been already put up here.