garyb wrote:what i suggested was that there were those who have funded BOTH sides of these so-called "dialectics".
Dialectic materialism means (very basically) that social forces structural conflict is what brings transformation, it has nothing to do with "dialectics" intended as different opinions.
what i further suggested was that Karl Marx, regardless of what he thought, worked for those who have caused the current economic distress, and that he accomplished their goals with his writings, which he was well compensated for.
There is a temporal stretch that I can't agree with. Then, if you read all the stuff he wrote you'll recognize that he goes way beyond what you say. There is a way to read history, economy and social dynamics that you might argue with (as I do), provided you know it, but that had the great function to wipe out all the precedent bullshit based on the idea that a slave was born as such and to give some analytic tools that are still used now, even from the most distant.
please, if you quote me, quote me properly. what i said was "there has NEVER been a plan to transfer power from elite hands to the common people, except in the commoners' addled imaginations.". i stand by this. those in power, have NEVER intended to give up one iota of that which they had gathered. be sure of that. to once more quote Mr. Burns(who is based on D Rockefellor, a man that Harry Shearer, Mr Burns' creator knows intimately), "I'd gladly give it all up, for just a little bit more".
I'm absolutely sure of this. What I wanted to say is that the first one you have to agree with is Marx, whose theories are based exactly on this, that the elites will never give an inch of their power spontaneously. But he also said that the exercise of power, in the attempt to control and tame the natural reaction of the oppressed will exacerbate the conflict, causing its own debacle. Bring the guillotines in the public square and soon you'll be put under them too, as history demonstrates.The difference with today is that basically it all has moved on the "soft" side, but the dynamics are still unaltered. What's happening with the financial crisis is exactly that: you can stretch reality until a certain point where the whole paper castle falls down. You can imagine the foolish illusion of an indefinite growth but the physics say it well: that's a nonsense. You can pay the workers less and less and soon nobody will be able to pay for what you produce.
This is the core of Marx theory, who is a great and goes way beyond his late life involvement with revolutionary movements that have been his weak point....a scientific approach to the processes, which is still undisputed and is beyond the for the time being political adventures.
and i am certainly aware of such things as you mentioned. yes, i've read Marx's ridiculous rantings about how through dictatorship, mankind will come to the garden of eden.......
"Dictatorship" is meant (and written)as "dictatorship of a class", has nothing to do with a single person dictatorship. It's an obsolete language that can be lead to confusion today, but if you read it all you understand what he wanted to say. The error is to stick to the idea of classes of the nineteenth century that will make everything sound absurd, but when you hope for "power to the people" you're not saying anything different. Marx wanted just to point to the fact that "people" had to gain consciousness that everything they would obtain had to be conquered with a common action of power because, as you say, the elites will never give anything. Revolution happens through a class consciousness and a class action.
The simple fact that contemporary power tries to scare people and make them diffident of their neighbor and organize society in little, isolated and selfish mafias called "families" shows how seriously is considered the threat of "class" consciousness. Here the false identities, left vs. right, white vs. black, christian vs. muslim....all this stuff is used (and I think we deeply agree here) to deceive people.
revolutions always end with the same people in power. when you look and see who really, legally(as in by all the laws), owns property and resources, this can't be(truthfully) argued.
This is true but only under certain limits. Structure of property has changed very deeply with the liberal revolutions (french and american) in the western world. There was a time when property was a divine right and only could be inherited. The fact that practically what happens in many is similar cannot make us forget that the simple juridical change in that matter has been fundamental and life is changed a lot for that.
your definition sounds great. who controls that really? saying that the worker/slaves own the plantation, but this slave master here, through his talent, education and good breeding(genetic disposition) will direct the operation for everyone's mutual profit and you guys will do this dirty work because of your talent, education and breeding, isn't that different in reality to the slaves just having to do what the master says. Socialism and in partiucular Marxism are all about the industrial age. we now know that life is not about industry and who gets cash profits.
You should have a trip to see some Italian agricultural cooperative and the way it works to understand that things today are way different. That's not the exclusive model, we have also more traditional realities, but the most advanced, efficient, economically active and quality-wise at the top structures are in "cooperative" form which shares property between all the participants. The poor Marx couldn't even imagine the technological improvements and the structural changes of the latest 2 centuries. This brought new social forms, though, which is exactly what he was saying.
looking at all this writing, i could easily think that since you and i disagree on this subject so obviously that our thinking is opposed. i don't htink that that's really the case. i see you as a good person who wants to do good, as i hope you see me. ideals are not as important as the reality of now and of our humanity and our right to exist. once more, i only argued with those details of names not the post. i hope that you don't love a dead guy more than the living
Oh no....I don't love dead guys!!!! I love humanity and, to be sincere, all the living forms! I only think that sometimes you apply a rigid scheme in the discussion which doesn't make justice of some aspects of reality.
I think that you would be surprised reading the writings of the young Marx (before his involvement with political movements, which made his writings more pertinent to his age and less interesting for us), discovering how much of what you think and how much of our sense of freedom and justice finds roots there. Just think that during the Stalin era those writings were forbidden in the USSR.....
