Why was Marx right and still relevant today?Can anyone deny what he says in this paragraph of the communist?

Question

Manifesto?"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few 6 is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society."

Published on Friday, February 23, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers
US Economy Leaving Record Numbers in Severe Poverty
by Tony Pugh

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0223-09.htm
Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty.asp

Answer 1

Marx has many things to say that are relevant
The rich have a vested interest in suppressing communism thus the vehement assault on the very idea of communism in the 50's. The Cold War was contrived by the british and us so as to continue a most profitable war. Eisenhower warned us of the power of a then nascent military-industrial complex. The complex has come into its own with Iraq 1.0 and now 2.0
The hybridization of socialism(the ultimate goal of theoretical communism) with capitalism was actually predicted by Marx and others and is occuring in Europe already.
Marx was at least 200 hundred years ahead of his time.

We saw what happens with Laissez-Faire capitalism that existed in this country prior to FDR and his "New Deal" . A return to such unbridled capitalism is what those currently in power are seeking under the guise of "deregulation" and "globalization" and "privatization"
The New Deal was just that.... a new deal between the rich and poor...we would not rise up and devour the rich and they would stop using us as expendable units of production to be discarded when no longer useful....thus was born SSI (some would gut it today) Unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Worker's Compensation, workplace regulation the list goes....no one yapping here would want to work under the conditions that were operant under unbridled capitalism even the one who owns my computer. All those things were challenged in court and even overturned!! Because then as now the rich own the courts. That is what law enforcement is for to maintain the status quo...serving and protecting the propertied...you and I are an afterthought, unless we get restless and stop hating each other long enough to see how we are being exploited....dont follow leaders watch them parking meters....goes for the "owners and so-called producers" who supposedly do so much

Answer 2

I often wondered why liberalism took two different paths. American liberalism favors private ownership of wealth where European liberalism favors state ownership of wealth.
I've concluded it has to do with the environment at the time of the liberal revolution.
In America, people came here to a wilderness where they had to forge a society on their own. There wasn't any type of infrastructure. There was nothing. A person's survival depended solely on their own abilities. Most of the resources of the land had yet been tapped, and there wasn't any centralized wealth built up by any governing or ruling body. Since there wasn't a fortune amassed by an existing state, the question of what to do with the nation's wealth wasn't even an issue.
Europe, on the other hand, was different. When people started taking control of government in Europe, vast empires existed. There was an issues as to how to handle the wealth acquired by the ousted governments. Sharing the wealth evenly among the people, socialism, was the only reasonable solution.
I can't relate this to your question, at the moment. I could if I had more time, but I got to run. Time for work.

edit:
To continue this thought. Fortunes in America have been built by individual aspirations, not by imperialistic rulers. Establish wealth in Europe, in most cases, was either taken by force or earned on the backs of the common man.
It's an entirely different situation than in America. The only wealth that existed in America at the time of the revolution was the untapped natural resourses. Since no organized government existed, it made sense for these resourse to be available for private ownership and development. That's the only way the USA could have ever developed as a nation.
Given that, the ideals of Marx simply would never have worked in America. Socialism only works, theorically, when an established economy exist. Even so, socialism cannot offer the individual rewards of private ownership.

Answer 3

Karl Marx was a smart man, there's no doubt about it. The real reason communism didn't work is that greedy people will try to appropriate things for themselves in any system they happen to live in. By making the communist party the sole means through which to attract power, they lead ambitious people to go in there. As a Polish comedian put it: Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while communism is just the reverse.
So either way, I don't think the perfect society can ever be found in either extreme (or indeed that a perfect society will ever exist). Systems that work the best mitigate the extremes. A runaway capitalist state would have massive poverty, little consumer protection, horrific environmental standards, etc... Communist systems place power in the hands of the few (just as extreme capitalist systems do). I personally advocate a system that limits personal wealth (the idea of a maximum salary) and would dramatically legislate bigger businesses, and separate them from the political process, and end certain legal advantages for large corporations as separate entities. In America, these views are seen as extreme, but in many other parts of the world, similar ideas have given rise to quite viable systems.

Answer 4

""The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen. ""

Well if we quit letting millions of poor and uneducated flood into the USA this wouldnt be happening like that.

You cant bring the whole world to the USA and the UK in order to 'save' everyone. The problem has to be fixed where they live.

And you need to think over what your saying alot more. You cant imagine the problems that would be caused by the government owning everything. Look how much they screw up things now.

Answer 5

I think Marx was wrong on many things. Look at the current communist countries in the world today and see if his ideas are working. Here are a few stats on China.
18% of the planets poor live in China.
135,000,000 million Chinese live on less than a dollar a day.
How is that for redistribution of wealth?
The gap between the rich and the poor in China is widening, not shrinking.
No economic system is perfect. Marx may have been smart, but he was still wrong. His ideas simply do not work.

Answer 6

Karl Marx would be correct if human beings were of flawless character free from greed. However, we have seen that human beings are full of greed and act accordingly.

Everywhere the communist ideal has been attempted, the individuals in charge of distribution have taken more than their fair share. Furthermore, the agricultural system breaks down in communist countries from lack of personal incentive due to the greed in human nature.

If you don't "own" the tomato patch, there is no incentive for you to grow the best tomatos you possibly can. Therefore, sub standard tomatos are grown and the countries economy suffers.

Under the capitalist system, you "own" either the tomato patch and/or the tomatos you are growing and you get to keep the money from the sell of the tomatos. You will go to extraordinary lengths to produce the finest possible tomatos at the highest level of production. The country's economy will flourish because your "greed".

Capitalism works because it plays to human nature which is consumed with greed.

Answer 7

If you are speaking of a world-view, your argument does not hold up. Most of those poverty striken and dying children you speak of live in third world countries run by dictators. Or in countries in the middle of civil conflict. Under Communism, the Russian people were starving. There was no family, as the government took children based on their talents and sent them off to "serve the government".

The only way to get people to work for nothing is to enslave them. I would rather struggle and be free, than have everything handed to me and be a slave to any government.

Answer 8

I would love to know what percentage of the 1 billion who could not read were American, or under the age of 5...I also do not believe that a large percentage of AMERICANS live on less than $2 a day...if you mix the stats with the 3rd world countries you will not get an accurate report of the American economy. $2 a day in a 3rd world country is quite a bit of money. there are too many flaws in your argument. Marx is wrong.

Answer 9

Yes, but then I am part of the 1/10. Can you not see the dismal failure? Dreams and reality seldom coexist. Not to mention the politburo seemed a lot like the 1/10 also.

Answer 10

Communist Dictatorships were far from Marxist. His views are ideal yet hard to implement. If a true Marxist society could exist, which has never happened it might be the greatest ever, or it might fail completely, we don't know. His views are still relevant because he was an intelligent person with a view for true equality.