REH
> Never having lived in Marxist Communism I am sure that is true however:
>
Here we go again... Ray, nobody yet lived in Marxist Communism,
what's more, not one of the pseudo-socialist countries/ex-leaders claimed
that their countries were Marxist Communist. Not even Castro
or Baby Kim.
> 1. Do you mean to say the Marxism is not Messianic and claims to be scientific?
>
No, Marxism does not accept the existence of any Absolute Truth,
so it cannot be Messianic.
> 2. Or are you saying that Marx himself was not Messianic in his claims?
>
no, he did not claim any such role. Which claims are such in your
opinion?
> 3. Or that he did not set out to write a book that was as timeless as the Bible
>claims
> to be and ended up being as time and culture bound as it is?
>
His book is timeless as any can be that manages to show
a pattern that was not discovered before, as, for example, Mendeleyev's
Periodical Table. Both have gaps that were not possible to fill
from their contemporary data, however, the pattern still works
beautifully and helped in the findings of further discoveries.
> 4. Or if "scientific" is its claim; then are you claiming that its "scientific" data
> about the nature, (& potential) of life and systems is NOT archaic and grounded in
> philosophical belief rather than hard science? (I would ask the same question of
> Hayek.)
>
Philosophical belief should rely upon scientific
observation of the universe rather than speculation or
pure imagination. I agree (if this is what you are saying, it
is a bit difficult to decipher) and this has been done;
both dialectics and materialism
are based on thousands of years of such experiencing of the
natural and the human universe.
> 5. Or are you saying the Phrenology with it's corollary "science" of body type
> "ectomorph, endomorph, etc." was not a legitimate area of scientific inquiry as well
> as being racist in origin? And that social/economic theory failures like Marxism
>are
> not the same as social/physical theory failures like Phrenology and Body types? Did
> not both meet the world of practical reality and civilized living and crash on the
> shoals of both?
>
?? Phrenology was bad science, it attempted to link intelligence
with head shape or whatever, and there is no such link.
Marxism couldn't fail yet, as it was not tried. Marxism is
DEMOCRATIC socialism, that has no reason why should not exist
when the economic and social conditions are ripe.
Marx descibed capitalism and its contradictions well enough to
be quoted in the top economics broadsheets. So his analysis
as to a society that could be overcoming these fatal shortcomings
has somewhat more credence than phrenology.
Just as phrenology per se did not cause racism and fascism,
Marxist theories did not cause the catastrophies of Stalinism.
> 6. Did not Marx crash on the shoals of family, spirituality, human nature, poor
> delivery systems, and the inability to deal with Western culture's predatory nature?
> (I'm not speaking of the failures often attributed to Marxism that Capitalism and the
> Aristocratic systems share. i.e. poor weather or stupidity about the environment.)
>
Marxism is a theory of analysis. It says, that when the economic
base is strong enough, when there is a literate working class with ideas
about a consciously and collectively built future and a reasonable
experience and expectations of democracy, than the practice of
chaotic markets and private appropration will be thrown out
(if they don't implode spontaineously)
as they cannot solve the problems of global survival.
What is it to do with the crumbling institution of family,
a fuzzy notions of spirituality and human nature or
Western culture?
> 7. Do you mean to say that Marx, unlike the Puritans, was not opportunistic and
> grandiose?
>
No, I cannot see where and when was Marx opportunistic
and grandiose, and why should he compete with the puritans.
> 8. Do you mean to say that Marx is consonant with the most contemporary social
>science
> and that the failure of the Communist countries was not based upon problems with an
> unworkable Romantic 19th century fantasy?
>
Yes, see above.
> 9. Do you mean to say that Marxist economic application did NOT fail in the
> competition of its own market? (As the Warsaw Pact was a market of its own.)
>
What are you on about?? The Warsaw pact tried to play
the capitalist market game without capitalist economic
relations, a good illustration that the social-economical
conditions were far from the Marxist definitions.
However this was a minor point, the failure was due to
the total absence of democracy and openess, which made
planning a totally pointless, burocratic exercise.
The total absence of democracy occured, due to the revolutionary
situation arriving first to a semi-feudal country after a devastating
war. An allied attack on the new country by the
capitalist west supporting the whites against the then prevailing
will of the majority did not help either. When the small number
of litarate and conscious workers were killed in these wars,
the tsarist traditional tyranny had a multiple chance to
return to its own with its form of personality cult.
As after WWll the conditions were similar, versions of
this very patterns were followed in Eastern Europe etc
(not that they had any chance for anything different.)
The miracle was what they were managed to achieve
inspite of all this, just because private appropriation was
actually ended.
> 10. Did the Soviet bloc not have ample resources to prove (or disprove), within
> itself, Marx's theories?
>
In a way, it did. Careful analysis - as above - still shows
Marx being right.
> Eva, in my business, if the student fails then the teacher is blamed. We are rather
> blunt about it. We also are not afraid of failure as it is a part of the growth of
> life. What we do not believe is the ultimate perfection of life and the end of
> time. We believe in cycles of birth, growth, maturity, old age and finish or rebirth
> depending upon the mental and physical resources. We are taught that there is no
> ultimate perfection except in death. It is the belief, in "ultimate perfection, and
> the end of time, that excludes death as the outcome," that is the hubris delusion of
> most of Western thought. Those Westerners should learn from their artists.
>
Marxism is not talking about perfection.
If the student fails, the teacher shouldn't be the one blamed
without an analysis of the school and the syllabus.
Failure needs to be analysed, and if the causes for failure
established, than improvement has to be found. That is
how human intelligence survived so far.
> Consider that Beethoven "perfected" the fugue in the Hammerklavier Sonata and there
> hasn't been a decent artistic fugue written since. He answered all of the questions
> and made the Artistic composition of another fugue a redundancy, which we call
> "derivative" in the arts. In effect, perfection kills the form. This is not far
>from
> the metaphor of the death of the
> Father necessary for the adulthood of the child also found in what William Bennet
>(the
>
> Republican moralist) calls "Judeo-Christian" tradition. So what do I not understand?
> I'm happy to learn but remember I too have a time constraint.
>
well, I had already listed the above points previously, often.
You do not address these points, so either you don't want to
take them in (you are in denial...) or you don't understand them...
It seems to be a pattern. I answer you post point by point,
and then - you repeat your stuff all over again without
referring to anything I said...
> > REH:
> > > That is the reason that I do my own work and am my own boss. I miss the
> > > "safety" and am considered irresponsible by some for not having more of an
> > > inheritance for my offspring, but it seems you can't have both in this
> > > society. Sometimes it's better just to stay out of the way of those "economies
> > > of scale."
> > >
> > EVA:
> > not an available option for 99% of the people.
>
> Glad to see you speak for them. Anyone can do it if they are willing to.
>
OK, tell me, how can I go and be my own boss?
Once you tell me, I'll pass it on to that other 99%, and all will be
well...
> Maybe you have to understand and accept the truth of the Potlatch.
> "Only the person who can give it away or do without it can truly
> own it." The American and Canadian governments were so threatened
> by this that they banned the public expression of our beliefs until 1978.
>
You have totally lost me here...
> They did the same thing to us that Marxism did to Russian Christians and Jews, they
> tried to control and own it. We always said that Marxist Communism and Free Market
> Capitalism were really two sides of the same coin and that without one the other
>would
> absorb the worst of both. The U.S. Senators have been practicing Newspeak in the
> best tradition of the Communist renaming. Just hit the government web and read the
> names of the bills that they are proposing. Sounds like a bad translation of the
> Politburo.
>
The stalinists and the capitalists definitely needed each other
to keep their own people threatened and down, if that is what you mean.
The lack of democracy in capitalism is more visible now.
Eva
> REH
>
>
>
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