Pat Boone Calls The President A Marxist

[davidbfpo]

I always thought the problem was with those who combined Marx's writings with Leninism, hence the label Marxist-Leninist.

Marx's contribution was to describe a socio-economic model that would be better than what he saw. Lenin's part was to prescribe a revolutionary vanguard, who knew the 'right' way in everything and would achieve socialism.

You can be a socialist without being a Marxist, a Marxist-Leninist or a Leninist.

Somehow I have m' doubts President Obama has any of those labels, but then I'm a pesky "limey".

[slapout9]

I always thought the problem was with those who combined Marx's writings with Leninism, hence the label Marxist-Leninist.

Marx's contribution was to describe a socio-economic model that would be better than what he saw. Lenin's part was to prescribe a revolutionary vanguard, who knew the 'right' way in everything and would achieve socialism.

You can be a socialist without being a Marxist, a Marxist-Leninist or a Leninist.

Somehow I have m' doubts President Obama has any of those labels, but then I'm a pesky "limey".

Your took the words right out of my mouth!!! That is outstanding!!! Lenin is the Violent Revolutionary not Marx. Marx was more into a kind of Labor Union Economic Warfare. Lenin was the lets march on the summer palace with guns kind of guy. And Stalin beat them all...... that is why all 3 fly togather on the flags in the old Soviet Union, if you cant get them one way then get them another way.

[J Wolfsberger]

Marx's contribution was to describe a socio-economic model that would be better than what he saw.

The problem is that his socio-economic model doesn't do a very good job of describing reality. (Some, such as myself, would go so far as to refer to it as "economic illiteracy.") As evidence, I offer all the successful, prosperous countries operating along Marxist lines.

At best, the attempts to implement Marxism as the organizing principle for any country has resulted in cronyism (commonly referred to by the oxymoron "crony capitalism"), massive bureaucracy, debt as a huge percentage of GDP (sometimes greater than GDP), and bizarre notions such as a tax cut is government "spending."

At worst, Marxism (and its close cousin, Socialism) leads to the Ukrainian Famine, the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Killing Fields, etc. with mortality rates that make the term "megadeaths" appropriate.

[TheCurmudgeon]

The problem is that his socio-economic model doesn't do a very good job of describing reality. (Some, such as myself, would go so far as to refer to it as "economic illiteracy.") As evidence, I offer all the successful, prosperous countries operating along Marxist lines.

I think that you are showing your own lack of understanding. First, Marx was a brilliant economist FOR HIS TIME. He recognized a number of "truths" that others were having a hard time grasping. He was a horrible anthropologist. His classifications of societies based on their economic conditions was ahead of its time but he lacked the depth of knowledge needed to really apply them. "Ancient Societies", the first real book on what later would be classified as Hunter-Gather and Horticulturist societies was only published a few years before his death and he never finished his work attempting to apply his thoughts on economics to it. Therefore, his teleological thoughts on where society came from and where it was ultimately going were poorly informed at best, at worse they reflect his own personal "dislike" for the class system that had developed that he rightly saw as a drag on the potential for economic growth since it fostered the cronyism you accuse communist systems of. Certain things are part of human nature and can be found in almost any economic system, capitalist or communist.

At best, the attempts to implement Marxism as the organizing principle for any country has resulted in cronyism (commonly referred to by the oxymoron "crony capitalism"), massive bureaucracy, debt as a huge percentage of GDP (sometimes greater than GDP), and bizarre notions such as a tax cut is government "spending."

Right now all those capitalist countries, including the US, are crumbling under their own debt. And just to be clear, lending and borrowing are fundamental components of capitalist systems as well. One must separate the economics from the political system.

At worst, Marxism (and its close cousin, Socialism) leads to the Ukrainian Famine, the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Killing Fields, etc. with mortality rates that make the term "megadeaths" appropriate.

Marxism and Socialism are not closely related, although it is a fair argument that socialism, as a governmental system, is a hybrid of communism and capitalism, designed to implement the best of both worlds.

The truth that many people in the US don't want to believe is that America needs to become a socialist country. The "Virtue of Selfishness" attitude that has become the founding ideologies of groups like the TEA party leave no room for civic duties - it is all about me and leaving me to do what I want because that produces the best possible world (for me). The "war of all against all" as Hobbes would describe it. The major problem with the US is that it has no historical commonality - no common ethnic or religious group to maintain a semblance of social cohesion. We are not all French or Swedish or Kurd or Christians or Jews. In fact it prides itself on the individualist mentality. But if everyone is an individual, how do you work together for a common goal? You can't. All that remains is the slow decay as everyone tries to keep for themselves without any thought for the greater good.

If you don't believe that then look at the gun control debate. It is not enough that we have armed police to protect us. We cannot depend on the system. We don't trust it. So we must be able to defend ourselves from everyone else in the country. There is no cohesion in this train of thought. It is based on the idea that there is no unifying bond - nothing that we have in common. In the US, the only thing we have is the history of our common government. Remember that Hobbes was describing the world before the Social Contract. If we are going to have a social contract then the only entity we can do that with is the government. If it does not become the focal point of our unity - if it instead becomes the the center of our fears, then we have nothing else. We will slowly splinter. The US will go out with a whiny whimper.

[J Wolfsberger]

I didn't intend to imply that nothing Marx ever did was accurate or useful. But I would say that before you can get anything out of, say, the Labor Theory of Value, you have to do a lot of translating into real world conditions of economic behavior.

Yes, he did do some useful research. He then did a terrible job of applying the results.

As for the rest, we're in considerable disagreement. Exploring it would take us well outside the boundaries of this site. We can agree to disagree.

[davidbfpo]

Last night there was a discussion on the BBC's Newsnight programme on the Cyprus banking raid and an economist pointed out to one discussant that the US government is a very, very active participant in the economy. Reference was made to the US$31 billion annual investment in drug / medical research, by an agency I didn't catch the name of. Needless to say in the UK and suspect other places in the EU, there is no equivalent, let alone such an amount.

Sometimes one hears Americans, inside and outside government, refer to the USA being a capitalist economy, free market etc. Really?

The sad (my) truth is that both the advocates and participants in public policy making in the developed 'West', whether capitalist or socialist and those in-between - just love spending other people's money.

Perhaps the USA should acknowledge it is not the current President who is a 'Marxist', but a rather large part of your establishment, elite, public and private sector.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Last night there was a discussion on the BBC's Newsnight programme on the Cyprus banking raid and an economist pointed out to one discussant that the US government is a very, very active participant in the economy. Reference was made to the US$31 billion annual investment in drug / medical research, by an agency I didn't catch the name of. Needless to say in the UK and suspect other places in the EU, there is no equivalent, let alone such an amount.

Sometimes one hears Americans, inside and outside government, refer to the USA being a capitalist economy, free market etc. Really?

The sad (my) truth is that both the advocates and participants in public policy making in the developed 'West', whether capitalist or socialist and those in-between - just love spending other people's money.

Perhaps the USA should acknowledge it is not the current President who is a 'Marxist', but a rather large part of your establishment, elite, public and private sector.

We practice Corporate Marxism

J. W. - I can agree that we can agree to disagree

[Firn]

Marx did a brilliant job at looking and exposing some very nasty business practices of his day.

He very aptly described the vast economic development, the booming globalisation and the shifts of economic and political power:

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.

Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

He sadly draw idiotic conclusions, was stupidly deterministic and pretty much deadly wrong on the macro side of economics. Of course he had not the advantage of our knowledge, and we have seen many getting it terrible wrong today despite that wealth of wisdom. Everybody who has studied the results of too much purity of cultic groupthink wielding the power of the state should be very aware. Maos great leap is just a horrific example of it.

Moderates were able to blunt the impact of naked capitalism, laying the foundations of sustained strong economic growth which rests on shoulders of many share- and stakeholders and did overall greatly lessen the chances of radicals left and right. Obama is arguably not moderate enough on some issues like government spending and financial reforms, doing too little but of course while facing strong headwinds.

[J Wolfsberger]

The sad (my) truth is that both the advocates and participants in public policy making in the developed 'West', whether capitalist or socialist and those in-between - just love spending other people's money.

Perhaps the USA should acknowledge it is not the current President who is a 'Marxist', but a rather large part of your establishment, elite, public and private sector.

I agree whole heartedly with both, and get quite depressed about the second. (Incidentally, your latter point is what I was pointing out when I wrote that "crony capitalism" is an oxymoron.

[slapout9]

Link to a free PDF copy of the book. It is an easy read and a pretty well written book so read and decide for yourself if President Obama is an Alinsky-ite. Especially read the chapter with the rules for "Means and Ends" not usually quoted when the book is discussed. I thought those rules were more insightful than the actual rules for the radicals. Enjoy


http://servv89pn0aj.sn.sourcedns.com...r_Radicals.pdf