American Marxism

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:45 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:14 am I know, I know. You're "anti-commie" and that's as far as your thinking process goes. It doesn't appear you even read that last part of my post. Not sure why anyone should waste their time trying to talk to a bigot, but I guess I have nothing better to do.
Now, now, Gary...play nice. I think I treat you pretty well...we may disagree sometimes, and sometimes not, but I don't insult you, do I?

I have good reasons for opposing Marxism. Anybody would. It's quite literally, and by orders of magnitude, the most lethal creed the human race has ever known. That is, if we count numbers of bodies. And it's utterly ruined every economy where it's been tried, causing untold additional misery. So for anybody that likes human beings, and wants them to stay free, alive and prosperous, Marxism is the opposite of that.

So that's a pretty good reason, don't you think?
People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:22 am Democracy means giving the people the power to rule over their own lives.
Well, sort of. That will work as a very rough description, but it needs to be filled out a lot more. The same description could apply to Republicanism, Libertarianism or even Anarchism, if that was all there was to it.
Democracy is not "just a procedural description."
Yes, it is. It means "rule by the demos," the common people, but is more often understood as a form of majority rule as well. Usually it's also done indirectly, through representatives, not my direct democracy. But in either case, it does not tell us beforehand what the outcome of that "rule" must be. Whatever the people vote for, that's what goes. So the result could be pretty much anything. That's what I mean when I say it's "procedural."

Marxism, on the other hand, has a whole view of history (really, it's a form of historicism) and has a prophetic tone as well, specifying "the triumph of the proletariat" or "the ideal society" or today, "the equitable society" as its allegedly-inevitable goal. It also entails secularism, Atheism, and Dialectical Materialism, none of which democracy requires. And Marxism has definite rules of economics, as well: "government ownership of the means of production," an usually also requires government intrusion into all areas of private life.

Democracy has none of these things. it does not say anything about the past or future, has no teleological goal in particular, does not entail any particular view of religion or ontology, and says nothing at all about economics. It has no particular ideology of its own, except that something construed as "the people" should be decisive in political matters; but it does not limit how, as it can be direct or indirect. It is also is minimally intrusive into private life, and does not entail government ownership of things.

And one more thing: democracy has nowhere near as bad a track record as Marxism for killing people.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:55 am People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
If you think that's what Marxism means, then you don't know Marxism.
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:01 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:55 am People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
If you think that's what Marxism means, then you don't know Marxism.
I guess I don't know "marxism" then. So do you think the communists in Russia should have backed the Czars in the early 1900s instead of the poor who were rioting for bread? Do you think Marx should have praised the owners of the sweatshops in Victorian England instead of standing up for the people enslaved by the wealthy tycoons of the day? What would you have had Marx and "Marxists" do differently?
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:01 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:55 am People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
If you think that's what Marxism means, then you don't know Marxism.
That's literally what "communism" is, a social arrangement where people cooperate and help one another instead of treating each other as a means to be used or in some kind of dog eat dog race, hence the choice of the word "communism" as in having the same root as the words "community" or "commune".
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:16 am So do you think the communists in Russia should have backed the Czars in the early 1900s
Of course not. They were a corrupt lot. But the Bolsheviks turned out to be even worse, in at least some ways, than they were. They' certainly killed far more people than the Czars ever did, and ended up handing Russia right back to new, worse pseudo-czars like Lenin and Stalin.

I'd say you should pick another alternative. Czars or mass-murderers aren't your only choices, obviously.
Do you think Marx should have praised the owners of the sweatshops in Victorian England

Or course not. They were exploitative. But they're also gone.

Meanwhile, if you read any biography of the guy, Marx was nobody to talk. He was firmly upper-middle-class himself, and never raised a finger for anyone. He lived like a spoiled brat, off everybody else's money, first draining his famiy's and then Engels'. He never paid his own way, far less did anything charitable or socially-useful. For him, the "lumpenproletariat" were just the useful idiots he liked to theorize about as he dreamed of utopian social projects he could arrange, and how much admiration he could garner by way of his writings. And the real-life only poor person he ever knew was the one he sexually molested and with whom he sired a bastard son he never recognized as his own.

So if you think Marx was going to stand up for anyone but himself, you're obviously mistaking him for somebody else. He never did, in his whole miserable, selfish, abusive, ungrateful, spongy life.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:23 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:01 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:55 am People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
If you think that's what Marxism means, then you don't know Marxism.
That's literally what "communism" is, a social arrangement where people cooperate and help one another instead of treating each other...
Well, back to my question: where have you seen "Communism"? Which country?
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RCSaunders
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Re: American Marxism

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Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:22 am Democracy means giving the people the power to rule over their own lives.
Every individual ever born already has both the power and authority to rule over their own life. All governments of any flavor are agencies with only one purpose, to usurp individuals' own authority to rule their own lives, and use force to make people live as the government determines they must.

A democracy simply places the power to rule others in the hands of the majority of citizens. No form of government can increase individual liberty, it's why it's called, government.
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henry quirk
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Re: American Marxism

Post by henry quirk »

RCSaunders wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:24 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:22 am Democracy means giving the people the power to rule over their own lives.
Every individual ever born already has both the power and authority to rule over their own life. All governments of any flavor are agencies with only one purpose, to usurp individuals' own authority to rule their own lives, and use force to make people live as the government determines they must.

A democracy simply places the power to rule others in the hands of the majority of citizens. No form of government can increase individual liberty, it's why it's called, government.
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promethean75
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Re: American Marxism

Post by promethean75 »

"But the Bolsheviks turned out to be even worse, in at least some ways, than they were. They' certainly killed far more people than the Czars ever did, and ended up handing Russia right back to new, worse pseudo-czars like Lenin and Stalin."

wait are u talking about the bolsheviks under Lenin's order prior to and during the russian civil war when the white army summarily executed a minimum of 30,000 russian workers and peasants in an effort to restore the Tsar's rule so he could throw russia back into the misery it came from .... or are u talking about the Bolsheviks under Stalin's order... when the party resembled Lenin's model about as much as u resemble a critical thinker knowledgeable of history and Marxism?

Btw your homegirl Rosa Lichtenstein is droppin bombs again over at Quora check it out dude.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:09 pm ...the party resembled Lenin's model about as much as u resemble a critical thinker knowledgeable of history and Marxism?
Ah yes...the old argument..."there has never been real Marxism."

A very easy way to dispense with the blood of well over 100 million people, in a bloodless way.

But why has there never been the right kind of Marxism? Two reasons: one, Marx got practically everything wrong. And we know that now. Even the Neo-Marxists know it. But two, the assumed conclusion is that a real Marxism would do no evil, so all the evil Marxism's done could not possibly be Marxist.

Now, there's circular logic for you.

But if Marxism hasn't been realized, why not? What's so unrealistic and impractical about it that the millions and millions people who have tried have utterly failed to get it right? And why should we think your version is better?
promethean75
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Re: American Marxism

Post by promethean75 »

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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2023 7:23 pm th-3987272116.jpg
That's what you've got? :shock: A "turn away" from the basic facts? No denial, no explanation...just "I don't wanna hear the truth?"

But you know I'm right.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:55 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:45 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:14 am I know, I know. You're "anti-commie" and that's as far as your thinking process goes. It doesn't appear you even read that last part of my post. Not sure why anyone should waste their time trying to talk to a bigot, but I guess I have nothing better to do.
Now, now, Gary...play nice. I think I treat you pretty well...we may disagree sometimes, and sometimes not, but I don't insult you, do I?

I have good reasons for opposing Marxism. Anybody would. It's quite literally, and by orders of magnitude, the most lethal creed the human race has ever known. That is, if we count numbers of bodies. And it's utterly ruined every economy where it's been tried, causing untold additional misery. So for anybody that likes human beings, and wants them to stay free, alive and prosperous, Marxism is the opposite of that.

So that's a pretty good reason, don't you think?
People cooperating and helping one another survive in the world is a "lethal creed"? How do you figure that's the case?
Because Marxists are not about helping people survive. They're about their ideology being made mandatory for everybody. And if you don't believe in their ideology, then you're not "humanized," to use their word, and so you're sub-human and disposable. And they'll kill you.

That's why it begins with cries for the collective good, but ends in gulags, re-education camps, torture chambers and firing squads.
promethean75
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Re: American Marxism

Post by promethean75 »

Please see the No True Immanuel Cansman fallacy.
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