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  1. #201
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    1> I never denied that communist regimes committed genocides. I denied that communism itself is what caused them to occur. Stalin's regime was politically totalitarian and economically communist, and the genocides stemmed from the totalitarianism.

    2> I defended the root ideals. For instance, it's pretty much impossible to blame Marxist ideology for totalitarian regimes. Marx's utopia was stateless. The antithesis of totalitarianism. Stalin really didn't agree with much of Marx's (or Lenin's, for that matter) ideology, and borrowed what he found useful and discarded what he did not.

    You'll never find me defending Stalin's or Mao's regimes or their actions. I just don't blame the entire diverse spectrum of communist theory for those things.

    But I'm sorry, I interrupted you when you were flat-out lying about things I'd supposedly said.
    1. That's an inconsequential comparison. If an ideology fails that consistently, it is a bad ideology. You ignore Lenin's genocides by placating Stalin.

    2. It isn't impossible at all. Again you ignore's Lenin's totalitarian role and its origins, he had no vision of a stateless society and that was only one part of Marx's ideology they failed to realize when they actually accomplished a lot it. Marx's ideology was wrong and totalitarian to begin with when he openly denies the existence of human nature.

  2. #202
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    1. That's an inconsequential comparison. If an ideology fails that consistently, it is a bad ideology. You ignore Lenin's genocides by placating Stalin.

    2. It isn't impossible at all. Again you ignore's Lenin's totalitarian role and its origins, he had no vision of a stateless society and that was only one part of Marx's ideology they failed to realize when they actually accomplished a lot it. Marx's ideology was wrong and totalitarian to begin with when he openly denies the existence of human nature.
    Totalitarian views tend to lead to body counts is the point, does not matter if it is left or right wing, forcing your will rather than convincing people costs blood. Libertarians are not to blame for right wing dictator ships or Isis like states either, such a claim would be meaningless.

  3. #203
    Quote Originally Posted by Xarkan View Post
    Totalitarian views tend to lead to body counts is the point, does not matter if it is left or right wing, forcing your will rather than convincing people costs blood. Libertarians are not to blame for right wing dictator ships or Isis like states either, such a claim would be meaningless.
    Of course not but Marx himself hated liberalism and the "bourgeoisie freedoms" it gave. He basically condoned a society only achievable through the coercion of dissidents and yet his defenders argue his original ideology is pure of the evils that it inspired.

    Libertarianism is the modern manifestation of the enlightenment and the "classical liberalism" of John Locke and Adam Smith. It might be "right-wing" in the sense that it advocates some form of economic inequality but it really has nothing to do with right-wing totalitarianism like Fascism.

    Fascism, unsurprisingly, had Marxist origins as well since it was founded by Mussolini who made it a bastardization of his radical socialism.

  4. #204
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    Of course not but Marx himself hated liberalism and the "bourgeoisie freedoms" it gave. He basically condoned a society only achievable through the coercion of dissidents and yet his defenders argue his original ideology is pure of the evils that it inspired.
    You're confusing the necessary temporary evils he envisioned as an intermediary step with what his eventual goal was.

    Recall that this is a man writing in an era when the American and French Revolutions were relatively recent history, and were the core examples of major societal upheavals leading to change for the better for the people, and both involved violent revolution and a great deal of death and suffering.

    It's particularly silly when Americans take this kind of stance that Marx was "bad" for encouraging violent revolution, but the Founding Fathers weren't, for pursuing essentially the same methods (albeit with different intended outcomes).


  5. #205
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    1. That's an inconsequential comparison. If an ideology fails that consistently, it is a bad ideology.
    Some people just fail at pattern recognition. Or perhaps they are morally corrupt, or rather completely immoral, and see nothing wrong at that.


  6. #206
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    You're confusing the necessary temporary evils he envisioned as an intermediary step with what his eventual goal was.

    Recall that this is a man writing in an era when the American and French Revolutions were relatively recent history, and were the core examples of major societal upheavals leading to change for the better for the people, and both involved violent revolution and a great deal of death and suffering.

    It's particularly silly when Americans take this kind of stance that Marx was "bad" for encouraging violent revolution, but the Founding Fathers weren't, for pursuing essentially the same methods (albeit with different intended outcomes).
    Neither of those revolutions absolve Marx and neither of those were his primary motivation for his writings. He was more influenced by his negative reaction to enlightenment liberalism than anything else.

    I don't see how your last sentence applies to my position when I think both of those revolutions had terrible consequences. American aggression against the Indians and failure to abolish slavery for the US. Widespread death and instability for France and all of Europe after the French Revolution. Let's not forget that "the left" as a concept first arose as supporters of the French Revolution.

  7. #207
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    That's partly unfair. A big reason why that revolution never happened was precisely that Marx identified the possibility, and Western governments mostly adjusted their policies to keep the "proletariat" comfortable and satisfied enough to NOT revolt. It's less that "Marx was wrong", and more that Marx predicted and outcome if circumstances didn't change, and people changed those circumstances to avert that outcome. Successfully.
    Which proved Marx wrong in several ways:
    Politically Marx attacked those reformists - even if he and communists tried to temporarily use reformists before the inevitable revolution that the communist were supposed to lead.

    Marx had identified history as being of the history of class struggle - based on material conditions; and thus the "revolt averted" proved those ideas wrong.

    Geographically in areas less influenced by Marx the proletariat didn't take power.

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    It's like if Marx said "we're heading right for that rock in the road, we're gonna crash", and then the diver swerves around the rock. That doesn't mean Marx was wrong.
    Marx theory about cars seems to focus only on the brake. Thus he is wrong, since he missed the engine and that someone is steering and can make course-changes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    I think he overestimated human capacity for selflessness, but I don't really think he was wrong about the class conflict.
    He was wrong about that as well - regardless of your opinion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Yes, but why aren't we blaming the similar millions killed in Adam Smith's name?
    You missed that the figures about Adam Smith causing deaths are inflated non-sense, as already stated?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    It's particularly silly when Americans take this kind of stance that Marx was "bad" for encouraging violent revolution, but the Founding Fathers weren't, for pursuing essentially the same methods (albeit with different intended outcomes).
    It's particularly silly that you insists on this.

    The founding fathers spent a lot of time on separation of powers - so that a revolution wouldn't end in a reign of terror; they were moderately successful where Marx was a total failure.

    That Marx wanted a revolution - and after the reign of terror caused by a leftist revolution, and the American revolution - and thought confiscation of property and forced labour was important, failed to spend time on those safe-guards is why he is blame-worthy for the deaths in his name.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    It focuses the blame on the wrong targets, the economic ideology.
    You should read what you respond to - similarly as you should read what you quote, even if you don't always do that.

    It was a critique of Marx political ideology based on violence and lack of analysis - not about the incorrect economic ideas he espoused.

  8. #208
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    It's particularly silly that you insists on this.

    The founding fathers spent a lot of time on separation of powers - so that a revolution wouldn't end in a reign of terror; they were moderately successful where Marx was a total failure.

    That Marx wanted a revolution - and after the reign of terror caused by a leftist revolution, and the American revolution - and thought confiscation of property and forced labour was important, failed to spend time on those safe-guards is why he is blame-worthy for the deaths in his name.
    Marx never got past the intermediate stage of the revolution. He never reached a point where he could begin building up that society in the aftermath.

    The historical reality is that violent and terror-filled revolution was how the people seized power from the aristocracies that ruled them, at the time Marx was writing. Looking at his writings and being shocked by that, as modern citizens, and not applying equal horror in retrospect to the American and French Revolutions (among others) is pretty clear hypocrisy. Do you condemn those who launched those two Revolutions? Should the peoples have remained under the yoke of monarchies in both cases? If you don't, it's a bit silly to so strongly condemn Marx for pursuing similar methods. He was writing just 50 years later.

    And revolution wasn't all that uncommon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...0.E2.80.931799

    I'm citing the American and French Revolutions specifically not because they were the only ones, but because both were so sociopolitically important to the development of Western society in general in this era, and are generally looked back upon favorably. They were not just political power shifts, but ideological standpoints, which was the kind of revolution that Marx was pursuing.

    Again, I'm not a Marxist, and I don't think he was right in any of this. But taking his work out of its historical context is not a defensible stance.


  9. #209
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    Libertarianism is the modern manifestation of the enlightenment and the "classical liberalism" of John Locke and Adam Smith. It might be "right-wing" in the sense that it advocates some form of economic inequality but it really has nothing to do with right-wing totalitarianism like Fascism.
    This is revisionist pablum, libertarian thought emerged in the US as a response against desegregation and civil rights, bankrolled by wealthy segregationists who, like the wealthy southern politicians of antebellum south, created fake science like phrenology, paid pastors to interpret slavery and inequality as divinely inspired, and themselves pushed white supremacy and dominion of non-propertied peoples as a philosophy of limited government and maximum liberty. The wealthy segregationists like Volcker, Koch, etc. paid people like Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, to make an economic case against desegregation and equal rights without using the words of George Wallace.

  10. #210
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    Quote Originally Posted by Forogil View Post

    The founding fathers spent a lot of time on separation of powers - so that a revolution wouldn't end in a reign of terror; they were moderately successful where Marx was a total failure.
    I'm guessing you aren't black or native american or aware of the civil war in any way. Or just aware, in general.

  11. #211
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    Gotta love those cuddled upperclass hipster kids advocate for communism and screech-accusing others of privilege (but you'd be hard pressed to find more privileged people than them)

    Fact is: Communism can't exist without a dictatorship/totaliterianism.

    You can parrot your liberal arts professors for brownie points all you want. It doesn't change reality and history.

  12. #212
    Quote Originally Posted by Daelak View Post
    This is revisionist pablum, libertarian thought emerged in the US as a response against desegregation and civil rights, bankrolled by wealthy segregationists who, like the wealthy southern politicians of antebellum south, created fake science like phrenology, paid pastors to interpret slavery and inequality as divinely inspired, and themselves pushed white supremacy and dominion of non-propertied peoples as a philosophy of limited government and maximum liberty. The wealthy segregationists like Volcker, Koch, etc. paid people like Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, to make an economic case against desegregation and equal rights without using the words of George Wallace.
    You are the Alex Jones of progressives.

  13. #213
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    You are the Alex Jones of progressives.
    Yawn, it's all there, look at who founded Cato, AEI, University of Chicago Economics, UVA school of political economy. It's all there for you to read, wealthy segregationists in league with white supremacists like Harry Byrd in Virginia, among other politicians in the south at the time, wanted ammunition against the wave of civil rights protests and arguments that were given credence in the federal court system but without being overtly racist and segregationist. This gave rise to libertarianism and conservatism. This is what Goldwater, and what future republican presidential candidates ran on as well.

  14. #214
    Quote Originally Posted by advanta View Post
    I'm guessing you aren't black or native american or aware of the civil war in any way.
    You be guessing wrong. Do you have anything to add to the discussion or are you just being rude?

    There is a reason I wrote that the US constitution with separation of powers was moderately successful.

  15. #215
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gahmuret View Post
    Some people just fail at pattern recognition. Or perhaps they are morally corrupt, or rather completely immoral, and see nothing wrong at that.

    Thomas Sowell is an idiot. Capitalism has failed many times. How many times? About 47 times. It's not a matter of if we're going to have a recession, but when. Franklin D. Roosevelt even said his greatest accomplishment was saving capitalism.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

  16. #216
    Quote Originally Posted by Dukenukemx View Post
    Thomas Sowell is an idiot. Capitalism has failed many times. How many times? About 47 times. It's not a matter of if we're going to have a recession, but when. Franklin D. Roosevelt even said his greatest accomplishment was saving capitalism.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States
    Yeah socialist countries don't have recessions. I suggest looking at Venezuela right now or reading about the collapse of the USSR. If that isn't what you were implying then your point is meaningless.

  17. #217
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    Productivity grew because of technological advancements, not because people work harder. Indeed, the wages grew less than the productivity, but the profits grew far beyond them. And http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2070-2079.htm#trillionaires

    This won't go on forever. Either AI or a distribution system based on need will emerge, as well as social ownership of the means of production, for example highly advanced 3D printers.
    An ASI would change everything we know though, hopefully for the better.
    http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artifi...olution-1.html
    Last edited by Vargur; 2017-11-10 at 07:49 AM.
    Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.
    To resist the influence of others, knowledge of oneself is most important.


  18. #218
    Old God Vash The Stampede's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    Yeah socialist countries don't have recessions. I suggest looking at Venezuela right now or reading about the collapse of the USSR. If that isn't what you were implying then your point is meaningless.
    Both are caused by capitalism. Venezuela wasn't that socialist, even though they were actively seeking to be. Ultimately the failure of Venezuela was the price of oil and fracking. The failure of the USSR is also due to the falling prices of oil and gas. Also wasn't the USSR communist?

  19. #219
    Quote Originally Posted by Kurata View Post
    (A bunch of fucking retarded garbage)
    Literally correlation implies causation: the post.

  20. #220
    Quote Originally Posted by Dukenukemx View Post
    Venezuela wasn't that socialist, even though they were actively seeking to be. Ultimately the failure of Venezuela was the price of oil and fracking.
    Both were caused by socialism.

    Venezuela nationalized the oil industry - and put their incompetent henchmen in control of it and used the profit to fund everything - without planning for worse days. They ignored parts that Marx didn't find valuable.

    Socialists generally praised Venezuela as socialist example before the fall of the oil price, some still do.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dukenukemx View Post
    The failure of the USSR is also due to the falling prices of oil and gas. Also wasn't the USSR communist?
    No, the fall of USSR primarily had other reasons - like socialism. As explained numerous times: USSR - the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics controlled by a communist party.

    The current problem in Russia is due to falling oil and gas prices.

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