2007-09-02 18:42:24 · 6 answers · asked by Clint 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
I ask because I agree with his criticism of capitalism but I don't believe in communism simply because I do not believe it could be pulled off.
2007-09-02 18:56:21 · update #1
I think it was Karl Marx himself that saw marxism put into practice in the form of communism and said something along the lines of: "I didn't mean it to be like that."
2007-09-03 00:41:02 · answer #1 · answered by Scozbo 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Yes, indeed. Um a lot of what Marx was talking about is in the book of Acts of the Apostles. How anyone can read that book and then proclaim it teaches free market capitalism is beyond understanding.
I don't think this is a contradiction like being a Darwinist and not believing in evolution, though. Our ideas of communism are so colored by what the Soviets and Mao did with it that we don't consider the idea as a way of removing faction from society. Because they did it through force, must we? Maybe. I don't think you can even possibly remove the idea of evolution from Darwin and still have Darwin.
The addition of more types of capital does nothing to clear up the necessary factions that arise. You take a knife and make many fine cuts, but you don't seem to know what you are talking about to me. You don't understand capital, or Marx.
2007-09-03 01:47:09 · answer #2 · answered by Sowcratees 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You probably agree with his critique of Capitalism because you don't understand it any better than he did.
First of all, there are more types of Capital than he understood. For example, there's the knowledge that individuals have. He never gave Management credit for their knowledge of what to do with the finished product of Labor, or their ability to assemble various Labor skills; as an example, are you aware that there is no single individual on the planet that knows all that one needs to know to construct a pencil? Think about all that has to go into it, knowing how to mine the metals, cut and shape the timber, make the paint....
He also didn't realize that Labor is also Capital. This is why Unions eventually start to behave like Big Business, with the same problems inside Unions that they supposedly were created to fight.
The bottom line of it is that Marxism falls apart on the Labor Theory of Value. Under that theory, each product is worth exactly the value of the labor that went to produce it. If that is true, two watches that come off the same assembly line are worth the same, despite the fact that one works and the other doesn't.
Yeah, you can be a Marxist without being anything, but generally to be a Marxist, you must be a fool.
2007-09-03 02:26:31 · answer #3 · answered by open4one 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
A bit like being a Darwinist without believing in evolution.
2007-09-03 01:53:12 · answer #4 · answered by Phoenix Quill 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't get the relationship to Darwin. Besides Darwin didn't conclude evolution, merely survival of the fittest. That would be just the opposite of Marx.
2007-09-03 02:49:22 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Anything is possible and if it's not grow some balls and get to it. Wouldn't it be great if you could be the first person to do something? go for it!
2007-09-03 01:51:06 · answer #6 · answered by Aurailieus 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋