Why Marxism is on the rise again

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism


A public sector worker striking in east London last year. Photograph: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features


Class conflict once seemed so straightforward. Marx and Engels wrote in the second best-selling book of all time, The Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." (The best-selling book of all time, incidentally, is the Bible – it only feels like it's 50 Shades of Grey.)

Today, 164 years after Marx and Engels wrote about grave-diggers, the truth is almost the exact opposite. The proletariat, far from burying capitalism, are keeping it on life support. Overworked, underpaid workers ostensibly liberated by the largest socialist revolution in history (China's) are driven to the brink of suicide to keep those in the west playing with their iPads. Chinese money bankrolls an otherwise bankrupt America.

The irony is scarcely wasted on leading Marxist thinkers. "The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives de-localised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation," says Jacques Rancière, the French marxist thinker and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. "Happily, it is possible to hope for a world less absurd and more just than today's."

That hope, perhaps, explains another improbable truth of our economically catastrophic times – the revival in interest in Marx and Marxist thought. Sales of Das Kapital, Marx's masterpiece of political economy, have soared ever since 2008, as have those of The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse (or, to give it its English title, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy). Their sales rose as British workers bailed out the banks to keep the degraded system going and the snouts of the rich firmly in their troughs while the rest of us struggle in debt, job insecurity or worse. There's even a Chinese theatre director called He Nian who capitalised on Das Kapital's renaissance to create an all-singing, all-dancing musical.

[malaise]

1. Read this late last night

I recommend Gramsci as well

[coalition_unwilling]

84. For a taste of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse is

a very good, solid read. See esp. "One-Dimensional Man"

I'm also partial to Erich Fromm.

One of my life goals is to read Das Kapital in its original German before I die.

[malaise]

92. Have a good friend who loved Marcuse

Nice goal - can't join you because I know a few words in German.

[Iggy]

2. Marxism on the Rise Again

uhhh, maybe because Marx/Engels were right about just about everything?

BTW, "Marx's General", a biography of Engles by Tristram Hunt is a damn good book.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Ding ding ding

[chervilant]

3. Indeed!

Across the planet,

workers bailed out the banks to keep the degraded system going and the snouts of the rich firmly in their troughs while the rest of us struggle in debt, job insecurity or worse

Great quote!

[RadiationTherapy]

4. Capitalism is the chief cause of socialism. Socialism is the chief cause of capitalism.

Hail Eris. All Hail Discordia.

[JackInGreen]

5. I don't think so, Tim.

Some of us remember the line of Eld, and some of us still have our guns.

[dionysus]

7. Gilead has fallen my friend. have you forgotten the faces of your fathers?

[loudsue]

6. That is so true. I like the European idea of a marriage of BOTH systems.

Well regulated capitalism with heavy taxes on the wealthiest.

On edit: And NO privatization of those services best handled by the government: military, prisons, schools, water supplies. In fact, there are way too many corporations in a feeding frenzy on the government tit that those same corporations so love to hate.

Making health care, with not one dime required to go to a health insurance company, a universal right is a really good place to start. And regulating the pharmaceutical industry theft of the money of the people of the USA is another good place to start.

Americans should not be having to pay more PHARMACEUTICAL TAXES to big pharma to insure that they can develop better drugs to charge ONLY THE USA more for.

[stockholmer]

13. here in the EU, we (the government health care providers) pay sooo much less for pharma drugs

than do either the American governments at all levels (Medicare, Medicaid, etc), the US insurance companies, or an American citizen buying with no coverage.

The US citizens are bankrolling the research for big pharma globally due to the inside deals that both Democrats and Republicans make to not employ scale-of-economy driven competitive price bidding by your health care providers, and also the blocking of imported medicines.

[Citizen Worker]

53. While traveling abroad in '07 I wandered into a pharmacy and asked if a certain antibiotic was

available. It was and I bought out the supply for under $100.00. In all, I purchased 13 courses of this antibiotic which in the US sold for $48.00 per course.

[HiPointDem]

95. big pharma does research?

[stockholmer]

98. 'The Truly Staggering Cost Of Inventing New Drugs'

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/

During the Super Bowl, a representative of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly posted the on the company’s corporate blog that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion, a price that would buy 371 Super Bowl ads, 16 million official NFL footballs, two pro football stadiums, pay of almost all NFL football players, and every seat in every NFL stadium for six weeks in a row. This is, of course, ludicrous. The average drug developed by a major pharmaceutical company costs at least $4 billion, and it can be as much as $11 billion.

snip

But as Bernard Munos of the InnoThink Center for Research In Biomedical Innovation has noted, just adjusting that estimate for current failure rates results in an estimate of $4 billion in research dollars spent for every drug that is approved. But Munos showed me another figure, where he divided each drug company’s R&D budget by the average number of drugs approved. This was far more dramatic.

Wanting to make this even more rigorous, Forbes (that would be Scott DeCarlo and me) took Munos’ count of drug approvals for the major pharmas and combined it with their research and development spending as reported in annual earnings filings going back fifteen years, pulled from a Thomson Reuters database using FactSet. We adjusted all the figures for inflation. Using both drug approvals and research budgets since 1997 keeps the estimates being skewed by short-term periods when R&D budgets or drug approvals changed dramatically.

The range of money spent is stunning. AstraZeneca has spent $12 billion in research money for every new drug approved, as much as the top-selling medicine ever generated in annual sales; Amgen spent just $3.7 billion. At $12 billion per drug, inventing medicines is a pretty unsustainable business. At $3.7 billion, you might just be able to make money (a new medicine can probably keep generating revenue for ten years; invent one a year at that rate and you’ll do well).

snip

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What does a new drug cost?

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/what-does-a-new-drug-cost/

Despite the variety of health systems across hundreds of different countries, one feature is near-universal: We all depend on private industry to commercialize and market drug products. And because drugs are such an integral part of our health care system, that industry is generally heavily regulated. Yet despite this regulation, little is publicly known about drug development costs. But aggregate research and development (R&D) data are available, and the pharmaceutical industry spends billions per year.

A huge challenge facing consumers, insurers, and governments worldwide are the acquisition costs of drugs. On this point, the pharmaceutical industry makes a consistent argument: This is a risky business, and it costs a lot to bring a new drug to market. According to PhRMA, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s advocacy group, it cost $1.3 billion (in 2005 dollars) to bring a new drug to market. The industry argues that high acquisition costs are necessary to support the multi-year R&D investment, and considerable risks, in to meet the regulatory requirements demanded for new drugs.

But what goes into this $1.3 billion figure? To understand the cost of a new drug, we need to consider both the cost of drugs that were marketed, but also factor in the costs of the failures – those discontinued during development. While most pharmaceutical companies are publicly held, no company produces detailed breakdowns of “per marketed drug” R&D costs, or the specific amounts spent on drugs that were later abandoned. Yet there have been attempts to estimate these values. The most detailed and perhaps controversial paper is a 2003 paper from DiMasi et al, entitled, The Price of Innovation: New Estimates of Drug Development Costs.[PDF] DiMasi’s estimates has been subject to considerable criticism, most recently in a paper by Light and Warburton, entitled Demythologizing the high costs of pharmaceutical research. They claim the median R&D cost is a fraction of DiMasi’s estimate: Just $43.4 million. “Big Pharma lies about R&D to justify illicit profits” shouted Natural News. Who’s right?

Drug Development

Drugs can be developed in different ways, but the usual model used describes a series of phases. The pre-clinical development stage constitutes preliminary studies of chemicals that have been synthesized or isolated, and are then screened. This process can take years: Identifying promising leads, validating them, tweaking with their chemical structures, and conducting endless in vitro studies. Only a fraction of drugs that show promise in pre-clinical studies will every progress to clinical trials. Clinical trials are generally grouped into three stages, each one representing an important milestone in a drug’s development. Phase I studies are small studies in healthy volunteers designed to help understand the basic pharmacology and pharmacokinetics in humans: how a drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated. It’s in Phase II that the drug is tested in groups with the condition of interest. These trials are larger, and may be randomized, with multiple arms, possibly evaluating different dosing regimens. Endpoints are usually related to basic efficacy and safety parameters. Phase III studies are the largest studies, that may be randomized and double-blind, in order to establish a drug’s efficacy against a given condition. Regulators like the FDA will usually require one or more Phase III trials to support an approval to market a drug. In cases where real outcomes need to be measured (like mortality or morbidity), phase III studies can be massive. (Like this one, with over 18,000 participants!).


snip

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tufts CSDD's official response to the recent Light & Warburton commentary

http://csdd.tufts.edu/news/complete_story/internal_news/

(To download the original PDF, click here) http://csdd.tufts.edu/files/uploads/sponsor_csdd_response.pdf


Recently, you may have heard or read about a new article by Light and Warburton, entitled “Demythologizing the High Costs of Pharmaceutical Research,” in which the authors have attempted to critique and discredit CSDD"s 2003 study on the cost of new drug development by Joseph DiMasi et.al. Joe DiMasi"s peer-reviewed article has received worldwide recognition for its scholarship and scope, and its methodology has been critically examined and validated by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and others.

I would like to share with you Tufts CSDD"s current response to the Light and Warburton article, prepared by Dr. DiMasi. This response has been forwarded to all media outlets and provided to individual reporters who have called asking for comment.

“In their commentary, Light and Warburton restate arguments about the methods and data used for our R&D cost study that they have had published elsewhere. We have thoroughly rebutted each and every one of their prior claims in two published responses that Light and Warburton do not cite in their current paper (DiMasi et al., 2005a, 2005b). In the current piece, Light and Warburton also attempt to operationalize their criticisms by making adjustments to our published estimates that purport to demonstrate that R&D costs are much lower than we estimated. They make five such adjustments, all of which are erroneous—- they inappropriately mix median values reported for individual drugs with what are mean values for the costs of clinical failures and preclinical fixed costs, and for which the concept of a median has no meaning; they misconstrue the nature of the corporate income tax and incorrectly consider manufacturing tax credits; they use discount rates that are meant for other contexts but that are inappropriate here; they treat line extension approvals as separate and independent units of observation alongside their original approvals; and they grossly misstate the meaning of and misuse figures in our paper on industry-reported data on expenditures on self-originated drugs, licensed-in drugs, and already-approved drugs. Detailed discussions of these issues can be found in our above-mentioned rebuttals. In short, every one of Light and Warbuton"s adjustments are invalid. Furthermore, two peer-reviewed papers by current and former FTC economists, also not cited by Light and Warburton, validate our work using other methods and public data (Adams and Brantner, 2006, 2010). They find that R&D costs are likely as high or higher than our estimates.”
- Joseph DiMasi, Ph.D.

References
— Adams CP, Brantner VV. Estimating the cost of new drug development: is it really $802 million? Health Affairs 2006;25(2):420-428.

— Adams CP, Brantner VV. Spending on new drug development. Health Economics 2010;19(2):130-141.

— DiMasi JA, Hansen RW, Grabowski HG. Reply: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Journal of Health Economics 2005;24(5):1034-1044.

— DiMasi JA, Hansen RW, Grabowski HG. Reply: Setting the record straight on setting the record straight: response to the Light and Warburton rejoinder. Journal of Health Economics 2005;24(5):1049-1053.

Make no mistake: While we are more than willing to engage in a productive discussion about research methodology and interpretation, Tufts CSDD will vigorously defend the scholarship, integrity, and validity of all its published research studies. As noted above, we have addressed Light and Warburton"s criticisms of our cost study in the past. Going forward, we will continue to defend the study against these authors and others who attempt to denigrate the validity of its findings.

snip

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[HiPointDem]

107. they spend more on marketing than research, & most of the real research is funded by the government.

The 802 million to bring a drug to market was stated in 2001, as determined by a group of economists, which was headed by Joseph DiMasi at the Tufts Center. To no suprise, it was reinforced often by the industry’s lobbying group PhRMA. The figure was announced at a press conference in Philadelphia in November of that same year. Marcia also states that The Tufts Center is largely supported by the pharma industry. The 802 million figure, as she references the NYT, is based on a very select and small amount of certain drugs that were the most expensive, and this was done deliberately. (page 42)

http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/10/the-case-of-the-disappearing-journal-article/

Rebecca warburton says:

Joe DiMasi probably never saw the issue of sponsorship raised in our work, because all such information was DELETED by the JHE editors. It’s also worth noting that the editors sent our first Comment to DiMasi and colleagues without telling us about it, or seeking our permission.

We’ve written short piece to let you decide for yourself whether you have ever been (or would like to be) treated as we were, read:

http://www.thejabberwock.org/blog/pdf/light001.pdf

In the case of this study, the authors said they received no external funding, but this very complex, long study of at least two years’ duration was funded from somewhere. From a budget internal to the Center? International disclosure rules for possible bias due to commercial funding call for wider disclosure. The web site (2004) of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (where DiMasi is Director of Economic Analysis) explains clearly that pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies are major funders of the organization.
[Several examples of non-research costs being included in corporate R&D] “raise serious questions about any estimate based on self-reported, confidential data from companies who
have benefited greatly for 50 years from inflating cost estimates. The simple question is this: If the industry really has such large R&D costs and wants society to help it pay for them, why does it not open its books to data validation?”

[stockholmer]

109. thanks for the links, and I despise big pharma, btw

I agree that the US government and taxpayers do fund much this. The US government, by law has to pay insanely high retail prices for its drugs, it also blocks importation from 3rd-party countries, and flat out funds big pharma in many of it's operations. Big pharma thus siphons off billions in profits. BUT, there is huge money that is still spent on R&D, regardless of which US entity is paying. America does subsidize the world's pharma development to a very significant degree. For this, as an EU resident I thank it, although the US citizens who are getting the shaft from both big pharma and their own government feel differently, I am sure.

[Iggy]

57. Agreed, Right Now

numerous, successful S & P companies are sitting on literally well over ONE Trillion dollars in liquid cash.

the power to rejuvenate our economy is sitting there doing nothing.

this is a huge travesty. when the history of this sad period is written, the author(s) will no doubt be incredulous
over the massive greed and child-like level of selfishness is involved with letting billions of dollars go
UNinvested.

[coalition_unwilling]

86. With a 'real' unemployment rate of some 15-18%, capitalism is failing to

use all its resources, labor being a resource.

If free markets allocate resources so efficiently, then the under-utilization of labor consitutes the principal indictment of captialism, imo.

[HiPointDem]

96. where do they have it sitting, under the bed? i'd bet it's invested in something, just not in

anything that creates many jobs. possibly government debt or bonds.

if money just sits, it loses value. corporations don't like that.

[Iggy]

99. I read one article

stating there's so much idle cash that companies are forced to _pay_ banks to keep it for them.

What a waste, experts say. Freed up to finance acquisitions, product innovation and hiring -- and to pay nice dividends to shareholders -- that nearly trillion-dollar sum would overshadow the best Washington taxpayer-funded economic stimulus program.

Among the top 20 industrials as measured by market cap in the S&P -- companies that include Exxon Mobil, Apple and Walmart -- there's about $400 billion in cash on hand, according to S&P.

Operative phrase: "cash on hand". doesn't sound like it's invested in anything.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/hoarding_cash_Yzfk2c8aK1wAPrZCRdEVnJ#ixzz208KTLh67

[HiPointDem]

106. i find that hard to believe. if $ isn't invested in *something* it loses value, and even more so

if companies are paying banks to hold it.

"cash on hand" means cash that's not in a long-term investment. if i put cash into a 1% checking or savings account, it's "on hand". doesn't mean it's not "invested".

and that's the case, as i see from the article you linked:

an astounding $963 billion is held in cash and cash-equivalents (money market accounts and T-bills, for example) alone at the S&P 500 industrial companies.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/hoarding_cash_Yzfk2c8aK1wAPrZCRdEVnJ#ixzz209ukghmu

[Iggy]

110. I'm Not Convinced

_all_ U.S. corporations are in "create value" mode right now.

putting cash in a more or less worthless savings or checking acct, or in T-Bills, is not investing
in anything creating jobs-- that's my main point. these companies are not building their business/
"creating jobs" per the clownervative meme constantly repeated by Boehner and the rest of the
hacks

[Prophet 451]

81. It seems to work

Sadly, my own government (British) seems determined to move us to a US style brutal capitalism as soon as possible.

[coalition_unwilling]

85. Um, feudalism was the chief cause of capitalism - n/t

[unreadierLizard]

8. You have to be careful

not to go down the road most Marxist states do; ending up a bloated corpse of over-regulation and poverty like the Soviet Union did.

At least in capitalist countries, there's the illusion that one can raise themselves up; I'd argue the worst class divisions were in the old Soviet Union more so then capitalist countries at the time. One needs to be very careful about Marxism, as it's a good idea on paper, but it's executions have been utterly horrible thusfar.

Not to mention if you disagree, it's the Gulag for you.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. The USSR was as much Communist as the Nazis were Socialists.

Last edited Thu Jul 5, 2012, 02:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Merely applying the label does not make it so. Stalin turned Russia & the Union into a Authoritarian dictatorship that spouted phraseology, but never practiced Communism, opting instead to pursue the megalomaniacal dreams of yet another madman. The USSR destroyed Communism around the world.

[BOG PERSON]

21. N/M

a wise person once said that if beat your head against a wall, your head will break, not the wall.

[Puregonzo1188]

27. The USSR never claimed to be communist. They claimed to be socialist and a democracy.

Just like North Korea is the "Democratic Republic of Korea."


They're about as democratic as they were socialist. So if we're going to use them as an example of the dangers of socialism or communism, we need to point to them as dangerous democracies as well.

[Egalitarian Thug]

28. That's the point. I'm glad that people are educating themselves. Hopefully it is not too late

for a critical mass to reach the inescapable end that this system leads to in time to either change it, or prepare for its collapse.

[Taverner]

49. Back when it was the Anarchists and Bolshiveks, it was actually working towards Communism

IN fact, Makhno's Anarchist Free Soviets in the Ukraine were much more Communist than the Bolshivek ones.

[backscatter712]

41. I'd rather go down the road of Norway and Sweden.

They could be described as socialist, but implemented right, with democratic government in charge, freedoms protected, and some room for market mechanisms in the economy, yet a strong safety net, strong mechanisms in play to reduce economic inequality, and strong restrictions on predatory business practices.

Best run countries in the world!

[hack89]

71. Sweden has a free market capitalist economy

with numerous privately owned multinational corporations.

What they have done is find the right balance between government, unions, and business. But they understand that only capitalism will provide the wealth they need to take care of their citizens.

[HiPointDem]

97. both have moved to the right since the 1980s.

[lunatica]

45. The Soviet Union was not Marxist

Stalin created a dictatorship and called it Communism. By the time he died he had built the Party through terror and many 'purges' of the people he considered his enemies.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

48. I'm already in poverty, so I don't have to be careful... nt

[coalition_unwilling]

87. Ding, ding, ding. Bravo! - n/t

[kestrel91316]

52. The major problem with the Soviet Union was its totalitarian political system and NOT

its communist economic system. That said, socialism would have been far preferable to communism.

You won't find anybody on DU raving about how wonderful the Soviet Union was, my friend. But I suspect you already knew that.

Thank you for your concern.

[BOG PERSON]

62. i think the major problem with the soviet union

was that it was the first ever socialist country in history and it was also constantly set upon by hostile powers, at one point getting invaded and losing 30% of its productive capacity and almost 15% of its population

[coalition_unwilling]

88. I will rave about how the USSR kicked Nazi Germany's ass along a 2,000-mile front while

we and the UK were dinking around down in North Africa.

Hope that's OK.

Soviet Union lost 20 million in World War II. We lost 250,000 (give or take).

[kestrel91316]

90. Well that part was admirable.

[Zalatix]

59. Josef Stalin and Chairman Mao were Socialist much like Pastor Hagee is Christian.

[BOG PERSON]

61. no true scotsman

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

[Zalatix]

63. Doesn't apply here.

Both Stalin and Mao explicitly pissed on several BIG tenets of Socialism.

That ruins any attempt to apply the "no true Scotsman" fallacy to this.

[BOG PERSON]

65. so what are these big tenets of socialism?

[Zalatix]

67. Everyone is equal, for one.

In the USSR and China that was certainly not true. The political leaders got the luxuries while everyone else lived in squalor.

That right there kills your "no True Scotsman" comparison.

[hughee99]

68. So is this "pissing on marxism"?

It seems to me that it wasn't the set out PLAN to have it this way, but someone had to be in charge, and when they were, the took advantage. That's the problem with any system in which you tell everyone they're equal, but some have more power than others (or most other systems for that matter).

It seems to me any implementation of Marxism on a large scale is bound to have the same issues with corruption that any other system would, and that this would almost always be the result (everyone is not really equal). That's why Marxism works better on paper, because in reality it's next to impossible, on a large scale, to make everyone truly equal.

[Zalatix]

69. But that doesn't make Socialism bad.

Going by that logic, democracy is bad because Republicans twisted it to elect Ronald Reagan.

[hughee99]

70. No, it doesn't.

However, if a number have people have attempted to implement Marxist principles and have failed along the way do to issues of human nature, then you can't say, "Well, what they ended up with isn't Marxism, so it doesn't count". The problem with implementing any system is overcoming human nature and I've never seen a system that sounds good on paper that doesn't have this fundamental issue. To say that Stalin or Mao didn't END UP WITH a Marxist system doesn't address the principles they attempted to found their societies on or the problems they faced when trying to do that.

[BOG PERSON]

72. "squalor"?

really?

[Ikonoklast]

9. Unregulated Capitalism and inherited wealth will be the downfall of us all, if things do not change.

And when the cheap Labor in this world finally wakes up and says, "No!", then what will the Capitalists do?

[Zalatix]

64. Drones.

[ananda]

11. I can see why.

99ers can't just live on unregulated credit and equity loans any more,
which buttressed a sinking economy that couldn't survive with people
on wages too low to keep it going.

Now that people can't even live on debt, and barely make it on wages
with fewer benefits and uncertain pensions, simply buttressing up banks
and corporations "too big to fail" while one percent elitists fare very well
won't work much longer, if it ever really did.

Mentally sane and healthy economists have always known this and still do.
They warned us, but who could or would listen while credit was easy and
the free market message was working.

Maybe nowadays people are starting to wake up and realize the free market
and unregulated corporate fascism just doesn't work; austerity measures
certainly don't work or help; and the answers have to be found in our common,
cooperative, dare we say it, "communist" endeavors.

[Crowman1979]

12. Because the Teabaggers hate it!

And if the Teabaggers hate it, I'm all for it!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. With either system, the temptation is for the 1% to enrich themselves

When I was in graduate school, I knew several people in Russian and East European Studies who had spent a year in the Soviet Union, as well as emigres. They spoke about the inequalities in the system, so that while medical care was free, the upper echelon Party members received world-class care in world-class facilities while the average worker patronized a rundown neighborhood clinic. Housing was allocated in the same way: high Party members lived in luxury apartments, while ordinary workers might have their whole family in one or two rooms with a shared bathroom in the hall.

Resources were allocated to the largest cities and the smaller ones got the leftovers. One of my graduate school acquaintances was at Moscow University and being a friendly sort, made a point of talking to the cleaning staff. During the winter, she developed a respiratory infection that just wouldn't go away, and one particular cleaning woman was always fussing over her, bringing her herbal concoctions to try, and so on. At the end of the year, as my acquaintance was getting ready to return to the States, the cleaning woman asked her what kind of town she lived in. "It's a town of 79,000 people," she replied. "Oh, my dear," said the cleaning woman. "You can't go back there! You won't be able to get any decent food or medical care! Isn't there some way you can stay here in the big city?"

There was also a distinct lack of personal freedom. You couldn't live where you wanted to. If you wanted to move to another city, you had to get a permit. There was no unemployment, but you had to take the job that was assigned to you, whether it suited you or not. University students had to attend universities outside their hometowns, because the authorities not only didn't want rebellious students; they didn't want rebellious students who had ties to the local population.

Now there were some definite achievements. Their school system produced a literate, knowledgeable population and was a true meritocracy. Students with notable talents in science, math, performing arts, sports, and languages had their talents cultivated in special schools. Gender equality was also a big issue for them. They banned a lot of the traditional customs that had held women back in the predominantly Muslim areas of Central Asia. (That's why I think we should have let the Soviets have Afghanistan.)

However, whatever the system is, whether capitalist or Marxist, you need to have safeguards against concentrations of power. In our system, the 1% are the people with big money. In a Marxist system, the temptation is for the politically favored to hoard all the resources.

That's why I like a bottom-up form of Marxism that grows out of people favoring local businesses and credit unions and avoiding the national chains and banks whenever possible.

[Puzzledtraveller]

20. Thanks for sharing this Lydia.

[Green_Lantern]

15. aren'tt fascist parties gaining in Europe too?

Both apply to emotion not logic. Applying strict morality to economics is bad.

[xchrom]

16. you need to learn more about marxism. nt

[Green_Lantern]

17. I've seen enough of it

To know it isn't practical.

[patrice]

30. Appealing to emotion, not logic, like the Tea Party? Applying morality to economics, like

ChurchCoC? At-will employment is a license to discriminate that IS used in red-states and that's one of the most powerful reasons they stay red.

Voice of experience here.

[BOG PERSON]

32. oh my god, you don't know ANYTHING

[Green_Lantern]

33. insults mean you have no argument

[BOG PERSON]

34. an argument to what?

you said it yourself, you had only "seen" enough of "it" to dismiss it, you did not approach it in good faith, and you're the worst

[Green_Lantern]

38. no...the worst in someone who ignores history and facts...

And thinks Marxism would work.

[LanternWaste]

39. So said the first three developers of the wheel.

So said the first three developers of the wheel...

[Green_Lantern]

40. I'm pretty sure a round shaped wheel always worked

Where has Marxism ever?

[BOG PERSON]

43. no

the worst is somebody who proudly puts their ignorance on display. somebody like you

[Green_Lantern]

76. you have yet to make an argument but please keep insulting me...

Tells me you have no leg to stand on.

Show me one place Marxism has worked and not ended up an impoverished dictatorship.

[BOG PERSON]

82. you're absolutely right

i bow before your superior knowledge. the marxist economic system that karl marx exhaustively laid out in das kapital fails everywhere its been tried.

[white_wolf]

42. Have you read any of Marx?

His entire analysis is logical and based on a scientific outlook.

[Green_Lantern]

75. yes I have read Marx and some his ideas have merit..

I just think it illogical to just follow one person's philosophy and no other.

I'm a pragmatist not an ideologue.

Secondly my livelihood is based on being part of the bourgeoisie. Yes it is not logical to me for the workers at our business would essentially run it. They'd run it into the ground.

Marx, Proudhomme, and other socialists did however convert me from being libertarian/conservative and see that business regulation is not immoral.

[socialist_n_TN]

93. And there you have it folks. At least he/she ADMITS.........

that it's in his PERSONAL self interest to NOT be a Marxist. Understandable, ALTHOUGH I do think that you don't give your workers very much credit. I've YET to see a business that couldn't be run by the workers in an economically democratic way.

Bosses need workers. Workers needing bosses? Not so much.

[Green_Lantern]

100. I don't think that was my point...

My point wasn't that I reject Marxism because it doesn't make me money. I'm saying the reality of actually running a company shows me that a workplace democracy would work as well as getting rid of the President and letting run everything.

As far as giving my workers credit, some of my workers are so adept they smoked marijuana the day before a drug test and were laid off.

Some people need leadership.

[socialist_n_TN]

111. And bosses are the ONLY ones who can provide leadership........

Hey I admire your honesty. I wish EVERYBODY supported their own interests.

[Green_Lantern]

112. you make it sound like I'm being greedy just for wanting to run a business

Which happens to employ people in good paying union jobs.

You don't even know if my employees want the headache of running a business.

Easy for you to judge me from behind a screen.

[tama]

113. Why was there a drug test? nt

[Blue_Tires]

18. I hope more people wake up to the fact that

big business has employed socialism to look out for its own interests for decades while decrying it to the public..."competition" is just a show they prop up...

[dembotoz]

22. an older wiser friend of mine said marx was not practicle when a strong middle class was around

destroy the middle class and the unthinkable becomes thinkable

[Puzzledtraveller]

25. that is usually the result, destruction of the middle class

That is the burgeoisie, the middle class. It is what Lydia was referring to in part, you have a top, and a bottom, no real middle. I am a state worker, I would be a defacto outer party member, alloted a little more than the majority proles, not really a middle class and definitely not middle class by todays standards.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
George Orwell

[Egalitarian Thug]

31. The middle-class is more accurately described as the protector class, They are the serfs granted

a modicum of comfort and coerced into defending the ruling class by the false promise of someday becoming ruling class. Inevitably, the system collapses and it is those protectors that bear most of the pain while their masters slink away with their treasure.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

46. They create their own gravediggers. nt

[Nye Bevan]

23. Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland, Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken to my joyful tidings,

Of the Golden future time.

Everything will be wonderful until they steal the warm mash and send Boxer to the glue factory.

[Bake]

24. What goes around comes around.

The bourgeois inevitably overreach in their greed. Look at the 1% in the USA. They're digging their own graves, just like Marx said. And as in his day, religion is the opiate of the masses, a tool to keep them in check.

Bake

[socialist_n_TN]

58. Yeah, they do. This is what? The third time in a little over.........

a century we've had to fight this income inequality battle. And Marx described it all, every time. As long as we use the capitalist economic system, we'll CONTINUE to fight this battle.

That's what people who talk about "regulating" capitalism never seem to get. Capitalism can be regulated, but it won't STAY regulated. Regulating capitalism is like riding a tiger. It's VERY difficult to do and you're always in danger of being eaten. So by trying to tame this tiger with regulation, you're ASSURING that your children or grandchildren will be fighting this same fight.

[Bake]

102. True, but Marxism fails because people are corrupt.

In an ideal world, Marxism works, but this world is far from ideal.

Bake

[TrogL]

26. I've been calling myself a "born-again Communist" for years

Causes no end of confusion especially since I'm a well-known supporter of the NDP and tend to quote Keynes at the drop of a hat.

[slackmaster]

29. Bumping

[ThoughtCriminal]

35. Most of what Marx said about Communism turned out to be false. Unfortunately..

almost everything he said about Capitalism turned out to be true.

[Mosaic]

36. Socialism not Marxism

What the repigs fear, Democratic Socialism, is exactly what the USA needs. Marxism leads to the nightmare totalitarian regimes of the last century, we know that Marxism is garbage. What we need is French Socialism, the kind that came 50 years before marxism. Capitalism is a proven disaster and abomination, so Democratic Socialism is the best, most advanced, most fair, and most efficient economic system especially now that machines are replacing labor at an astonishing rate. I link to an article so you can read about why we must phase out outdated capitalism, and replace it with a horizontal economic democracy. This is not a movement, this is a human necessity.

Stunning Progress in Technology Brings The Death of Unskilled Labor

http://singularityhub.com/2012/07/05/stunning-progress-in-technology-brings-the-death-of-unskilled-labor/

[Puzzledtraveller]

37. Here's the party for you.

[link:http://socialistparty-usa.org/|

[Comrade_McKenzie]

47. Capitalism is a religion that only those incapable of logic and reason...

Or those benefitted by it will defend.

[Hugabear]

50. Capitalism is a predatory system that is impossible to maintain forever

Eventually, capitalism MUST fail. It is inherently designed to fail. Capitalism relies upon increasing profits at the expense of the workers. First of all, it is simply impossible for profits to continue to rise forever. As we have already seen over and over, capitalism creates "bubbles" that eventually burst. It also continually widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. We've already seen what happens in societies where the populace is pushed to the point of breaking - eventually they will rise up.

[Starry Messenger]

51. I'm looking forward to a day when Marx is as uncontroversial as Galileo.

No one ever blames all the modern horrors of human existence on heliocentrism.

[limpyhobbler]

54. Marxism is making a comeback because liberal economics is failing to explain the world we see.

Working class people in the post-industrial world are being displaced or their quality of life is getting worse over time. It's largely a result of structural changes like automation and jobs moving to where labor is cheapest.

Classical liberal economics doesn't predict this or explain these trends very well.

Even the best of the liberal economists, the welfare-state Keynesians, only offer solutions that will get the economy growing again, but never address the questions of why the economy has to always keep growing and whether that is actually sustainable into the future. (Hint: it's not.)

After liberal and conservative economics have both failed, people are looking for an answer that explains what it going on. And marxism does explain it better. It might not be perfect but it's an invaluable perspective to consider for anyone trying to understand how capitalism works to create the kind of change and crisis we see in the news and in our lives.

[ellenfl]

55. my bad. i thought you meant GROUCHO marxism. eom

[socialist_n_TN]

56. Marxism explains the economy, the political, and the social........

What the capitalists don't want you to know is that they're Marxists too. They just use Marx's analyses of the economy to grab a lion's share of the resources. They don't want you to know they're Marxists because Marx also had a prescription for the problem of capitalism. They will use his analyses, but they're terrified that the working class might pick up on the prescriptions if it were known that they're using Marx.

[FarCenter]

60. The single-party political system coupled with state-controlled capitalism appears to be winning.

It dispenses with the inefficiencies of multi or two-party politics and relys upon internecine competition and leadership selection.

State management of corporations is more efficient, particularly when major new industries, enterprises, and cities need to be created.

[SidDithers]

66. LOL...nt

Sid

[Tsiyu]

73. It still cracks me up that the Communists bailed out

the Capitalists.

America couldn't pull itself up by the bootstraps.

So much for the "Glory" of the Free Market.

We're all fools.

[Green_Lantern]

80. so now China is Marxist when it suits your argument but not Marxist when people

Offer it as an example of Marxism leading to dictatorship?

[Tsiyu]

94. Wasn't aware I had made an argument here

Just a silly drive-by post. No point to be made, merely using the adjective as it is often used in the nation's moniker: "Communist China."

( Perhaps seeing each person as an individual will help you sort out who is offering argument?

Or, continue to view all all on a thread as some monolithic "you." Your call, of course. )



Peace Out

[Green_Lantern]

101. sorry to get defensive..

You make an interesting point.

[Tsiyu]

105. No problema

Don't take this the wrong way, but your "you" sounded trollish, as if any of us could be interchanged with another and still be your "enemy."

Carry On, Comrade!

[lovuian]

74. Socialism is on the rise because the Worker will Rise up

Marx has been right all the way

the Greed and Corruption of Capitalism left unchecked and unregulated
is the biggest crime against humankind

We are going to see the END of CAPITALISM

[Green_Lantern]

77. I'm a capitalist who agrees that if left unregulated capitalism would fail

But with a Federal Reserve System and government support of economic infrastructure I doubt you'll see an end to American capitalism.

Secondly you don't even have a history of a labor movement calling for an end to capitalism.

American workers are not a bunch of revolutionaries.

[DBoon]

78. European Social Democrats, and NOT Lenin were the legitimate heirs of Marx

Engels even presided over the founding of the German Social Democrats.

[Green_Lantern]

79. bad argument FOR Marxism because Social Democrats rejected Marxism...

In favor of market economics.

[BOG PERSON]

83. also rejected communist revolution in favor of imperialist war

[Green_Lantern]

104. Marx wanted Germany to engage in the imperialist Crimean war...

nt

[BOG PERSON]

89. the same german social democrats

that ruthlessly suppressed a worker uprising and handed rosa luxemberg and karl liebknecht over to the freikorps?

really?

[Taverner]

103. Very True. Add to that the Anarcho-Syndicalists, the Zapatistas and the Spanish Republic

[rrneck]

91. Marxism is on the rise because the robber barons are on the loose. nt

[Yavin4]

108. FDR and the Progressives of His Time, Knew That Marxism or Facism Was On The Rise

and either one could over take the U.S. So, he did the smart thing and built in some modest reforms that extended some small economic safeguards to the population.

As a result, FDR saved capitalism until Ronald Reagan and the conservative revolution of the 1980s set about to destroy the very modest reforms that FDR put into place.

Now, we have returned to the dire economic situation which FDR faced in the '30s. However, this time Facism is in the lead to overtake the U.S., not Marxism.

Sooner or later, the Republicans will take control of the government, and facism will reign supreme.

Will the masses rise up and counter it? People will rise up when they've got nothing to lose nor anything to live for.