----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 8:23 PM Subject: Re: Voodoo Economics
> 1) Why do you assume that if he saw contrary evidence, > he would have corrected himself? There was plenty of > contrary evidence available in 1883, and it didn't > seem to stop him. > Actually, there wasn't all that much evidence. He did not foresee the rise of the labor union movement. He honestly believed that capitalism could NOT reform even if it wanted to, that the logic of the market would lead capitalism to destroy itself. In any case, Marx was beginning to have some doubts right before he died, especially about the political movement based on his work. > 2) Why _not_ blame him for what has been done in his > name since he died? It seems like much of what > happened in his name is a logical outcome of what he > said, after all. > >Bullshit. Sorry, but that's what it is to blame the horrors of the 20th >century on a man who died in 1883 and who NEVER countenanced violence Do you really mean that he actually thought that the revolution and the dictatorship of the proleatariate was to be accomplished by gentle persuasion? >He never thought revolution would come to a >pre-industrial country, he never though it would lead to a single-party dictatorship, Huh, what was the dictatorship of the proletariate, then. And remember, what Marx was opposed to was not necessarily any better. How many millions tens of millions of citizens were killed in the US during the 19th century? >Marx was not a politician or a political theorist. He thought he was a >scientific philosopher who had discovered iron laws of history. No, he was a philospher who had the hubris to think his musing were science. He was no scientist; he made arm-waving generalizations not science. Inherent in them was the meaninglessness of individual humans; all that mattered was the class struggle. His opposition to liberal philosophy, which turned out a much better system than the Communist system, was faulty. He was wrong; and the actions of Mao and Lennin flow directly from the thought that all that mattered was class struggle; not individuals. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
