Why do Marxist "philosophers" still exist?
What makes Marxist schools of thought so trendy throughout the humanities?
Greed.
>>7704456
J E W S
E
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S
>>7704456
Marx was an early and important sociologist/economist/philosopher who tackled issues we still deal with today and influenced everyone after him.
Also Popper's "falsification" can't be used for his own social philosophies...
>>7704456
They get to have a atheist narrative about why their lives are failures so they blame others for it.
>>7704484
>Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
>So the last will be first, and the first will be last
t. Jesus, Son Of God
Not even marxist and I respect the work of marxist philisophers. The best conservative writers make use of marxist work
>>7704497
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TvfBxIkupA
t. Communist Jesus
>>7704549
>>And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.
Retarded authors of the Bible confirmed for never studying Economics 101
Reminder that communism is the logical conclusion of western enlightenment values, values that come from Christianity.
Marx was wrong about religion, but right about its misuse. Reactionaries have no place in a christian church. At least Hitler and friends were consistent with their rejection of Christianity along with communism.
because marx was right
>>7704549
I find it fascinating how retards always have a out of context quote from the bible to post around.
>>7704594
Naw, Communism cant get over that transitory period. It would work in a post scarcity world, but thats like saying I could fly if only I had wings. Scandinavian Social Democracy is the endall.
>>7704612
keynes was more right than marx desu
so was friedman
on economics anyway
>>7704612
It's describing an event in the early Christian community, nothing more. It's not a how things should be. It changes what you were implying significantly. And retardation of Marx doesn't in itself come from his views on property, but on materialism.
>>7704583
Hitler was openly Christian and he made sure to make NSDAP, who are you trying to fool
>>7704583
>Jesus fed some people who were starving once
>therefore we should consciously design an economic system that throttles output in the short term and cripples growth in the long term
Great stuff, comrade.
>>7704633
to make NSDAP Christian*
>>7704633
Why would he try to revive paganism and often talk about a kike on a stick?
>>7704520
>asceticism is communism.
>>7704576
>Fedora
>>7704628
>It's describing an event in the early Christian community, nothing more.
It shows that property held in common isn't un-Christian as some right-wingers like to pretend.
>It's not a how things should be.
Funny how the entire protestant movement was about going back to the original church and scripture and that principle is the basis for many denominations but mysteriously commune churches is considered "not how things should be."
>>7704628
>And retardation of Marx doesn't in itself come from his views on property, but on materialism.
Except not, you have it literally ass-backwards.
Why do so many religious people and eactionaries I read take issue with materialism? In the case of religious people it's just plain old retardation but the reactionaries are shooting themselves in the foot by sperging out against MUH MATERIALISM.
>>7704660
I'm a Christian agnostic but I don't take my lessons on macroeconomics from the Bible because I'm not a spastic.
>>7704660
In ancient Rome Christ fed some starving people and opposed ancient economic elitism. You take that to be support for communism. Well guess what, bud, we've tried communism. And people starved. Not very Christian of you, pinko.
>>7704603
Communist/socialist states have difficulties after the revolution because the US invades them or funds terrorists to fight them.
>>7704683
>we've tried communism
>going full retard neocon
>>7704636
>>7704683
I'm not the communist guy, but Jesus says nothing against communism and I wonder if people would starve with todays technology...
Also, Jesus give authority to the government to tax people in Mark 12:14-17. As we live in a democracy now we can vote for what the government does with taxes, like welfare or social programs, and there is nothing un-Christian about it.
>>7704677
>Christian agnostic
What does this mean to you?
>>7704633
Learn some history you massive fedora, Hitler despised Christianity.
Marx was such a seminal pillar of the "school of suspicion" (google it faggot) that many many subsequent critics are indebted to him either directly or indirectly for their attitudes and ideas.
Most people just encounter Marx and his successors (and his successors' successors) as touchstones and branch off from there. But the relative minority who become actual "neo-Marxists" have such an enormous tradition behind them and so many technically non-Marxist but very similar and overlapping fellow travellers to draw from that they can put forward very compelling and supple reinterpretations or appropriations of Marx's thought that can survive contemporary conditions.
In a certain sense, it's like saying "why is Aristotelianism so popular in philosophy departments?" In some sense, it is, since modern Western philosophers are almost always working within frameworks SOMEHOW genealogically related to Aristotle. And explicitly neo-Aristotelian "returns" to Aristotle are plausible because he's such a looming figure, and because modern philosophy is capable of tricking him out in modern philosophical power armour to adapt him to our conditions. It's all because Aristotle started a lot of philosophical dialogue, and a certain attitude that influenced many.
>>7704715
Socialism was specifically condemned by many popes as inherently and fundamentally contradictory to Christianity.
Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear thatno Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism.The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production; it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority.
The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature.Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property.A person who is deprived of something he can call “his own,” and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.
EncyclicalCentesimus Annus− On the 100thanniversary of Pope Leo XIII’sRerum Novarum,May 1, 1991, n. 12
>>7704715
Christ says nothing about communism but the old law is clear
>Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.
>>7704741
I'm not Catholic. Also that pope is dead...
>>7704726
>"school of suspicion"
pretty sure that was exclusively in regard to religion
>>7704763
All popes except two are dead which is completely irrelevant to their writings. Also being opposed to capitalism hardly makes you a socialist.
C U C K S
>>7704762
That verse is talking to the ancient Jews. Are you a Jew?
In Mark 12:14-17 Jesus, in the New Testament, explicitly give the governmental authorities power to tax people because the gov owns the currency. Your only loophole is bitcoin.
>>7704771
> Also being opposed to capitalism hardly makes you a socialist.
Sure. But considering how all government programs, taxes and welfare is called "socialist" by republicans nowadays everyone opposed to capitalism might be "socialist"
>>7704456
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUqlANApPgQ
cuz they get CHEATED ON XD
>>7704714
Corruption exists in every society, and the lack if efficiency in socialist states is a problem but not because of laziness, it's because of the difficulty in assessing the demands of the population.
>>7704817
And those problems could be addressed by a type of Market socialism for now and rapidly advancing information technology in the future.
>>7704714
>Because materialism is the core axiom which makes everything it produces fundamentally wrong.
Elaborate.
>>7704882
Free Will
>>7704956
>God exists therefore everything that excludes him in philosophy and society is fundamentally wrong
So Deistic Materialism is fine?
>>7704696
>Communist/socialist states have difficulties after the revolution because the US invades them or funds terrorists to fight them.
Or its because the starving proles realized the academics tricked them and they were better off before.
>>7704603
>Scandinavian Social Democracy is the endall.
Scandinavian Social Democracy is currently collapsing because of a few thousand immigrants.
>this thread
is John Milbank gonna make a comeback?
>>7704971
But they weren't, and it only get worse when you come back to capitalism. Do you even Russia bro?
>>7704971
Except when they are worse off going into capitalism...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_male_life_expectancy.jpg
>>7704978
So limit immigration and it works? OK sounds good to me.
>>7704456
Marxism is fun when you can criticize capitalism with him, also its excuse to be poor, and live less mentally imperative life.
>>7705005
he was a publisher
>>7705009
>replying to spam
lmao newfag
>>7705005
Did Friedman ever do anything besides being academic/think-tank hack?
>>7705017
But it got WORSE. You know, it means that in communism they may be poor, but then in capitalism they become homeless. But I know you are trolling.
>>7705017
They became poorer, their life expectancy dropped and death rates overcame birth rates
>The symmetry is striking: in the last sixteen years of the Communist era, births exceeded deaths in Russia by 11.4 million; in the first sixteen years of the post-Soviet era, deaths exceeded births by 12.4 million.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/drunken-nation-russia%E2%80%99s-depopulation-bomb
>>7704660
Protestantism was about going back to their delusion of the 'original church'.
>leading cause of death in communist countries
Starvation, democide
>leading cause of death in capitalist countries
Obesity
That's about all that needs to be said in this debate.
commonism is devil worship, go back to >>>/satan/
>>7704497
How did they make needles back then?
>>7705090
For the average Russian yes.Market infused, but still Communist, China is still going. Over a billion people strong
>>7705134
China doesn't count, they're only PRETENDING to be commies
>>7705120
Take a splinter of wood or bone. Poke a hole in the end for thread.
>>7705143
They are single party capitalism... So basically USA.
>>7705134
China's economy has improved radically as they shifted towards privitization.
>>7705120
https://roberthorvat30.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/bone-sewing-needles-a-brief-history-of/
>>7704456
Marxism is not a single school of thought.
Marxism is not "trendy" across "humanities". Marxism is very confined to a few subject matters, mostly geography, sociology, cultural studies and historical disciples. Yet, Marxist scholars were a hip and groovy group for the last time in 1960s. Straight up Marxists are seen as dinosaurs and Marx-influenced scholars are quite rarely actually Marxist rather than adapting some aspects of Marx's thinking.
Why Marx? He has the most comprehensive ouevre of all social scientists. The only one who can even in theory match him is Weber, yet, Weber never outright denied Marx rather than tried to adapt him. Would you do your homework and research the matter, you would understand that Marx is of impeccable importance in modern and especially pre-globalized social science.
>>7705161
nerd
>>7704583
> Marx was wrong about religion
What bit? Marx merely considered religion in the similar vein to Feuerbach, as an apparatus to alienate what men lack, namely, a good spirit.
>>7704971
> muh academic tricking
Vast majority of academia, before 1960s, was vehemently opposed to Marxism.
Also, 99% of Marxist movement's members were composed of not academics, but of ordinary proletariat. To deny their agence is to just celebrate the cult of academic.
communism will work when we no longer have an obsessive need for accumulating excess wealth.
>>7705129
>To OP: Because capitalism fucking sucks.
t. Amy
>>7705005
> Never held political office
He led Working Men's Association.
> Never even held a job
Journalist, academic, published writer... ?
> Supported
Yeah, Marx's study was funded by Engels. But its not as if Marx was some cushy well off academic - two of his kids starved to death.
> All applications of his theories have ended in failure
Simply not true.
also
> no citations
>>7705090
> Socialism utterly failed
It didn't though, the collapse of USSR was driven by internal political elite's factionalist fights, not some massive revolutions.
>>7705095
Almost all wars in the 19th and 20th century were the result of scarcity, nationalism and imperialism, all by-products of capitalism.
>>7705153
It also improved radically under Maoism. It's not as if there was this competition - capitalism in China needed command economy to lay down the basics for capitalist action - infrastructure, basic welfare system, literacy, centralized state, taxation apparatus, safety apparatus, judicial system, land reform and respect for property laws. None of these existed before Mao's reign. Capitalism took onwards from that, rather than somehow destroying his achievements.
>>7705143
>>7705153
It's all ruse. Once they take over say goodbye to capitalism!
>>7705161
>Marx isn't hip and trendy, he was just extremely influential to academics during the 60s, who in turn are extremely influential to the academics of today
>>7705161
Weber became popular after the fall of the Berlin wall because the dream of Communism became utterly detached and unapproachable as Late Capitalist ideology and power structures settled in and enslaved all post-Soviet regimes.
The irony being Weber is all about the rules of the game, Whereas Marx is turning the table upside down and creating your own rules. No wonder cultural pessimism and nihilism reigns supreme in the West, people can no longer dream an alternative future and prefer to eat their own flesh.
>>7705173
>Vast majority of academia, before 1960s, was vehemently opposed to Marxism.
Only in the USA.
Marxism has always been a bourgeois academic ideology. It fails because it's hard to manage from the top of the ivory tower where you can't see the ground.
>>7705192
>scarcity, nationalism and imperialism, all by-products of capitalism.
>BEING THIS RETARDED
>>7704787
>Prefers to work like a slave 10 hours a day for 10$ an hour, while his boss and owner reaps suprlus value, meanwhile because he hates "freeloaders" gets to vote Republican so that the 1% corporate mafia which is drinking the life blood of middle-America gets even more powerful and is even more untaxed.
The word you are looking for is CLASSKEK
>>7705216
>Marxism has always been a bourgeois academic ideology.
Why would the bourgeoisie perpetuate an ideology devoted to their own overthrow?
>>7705220
Refute the point then, you lazy retard.
The Capitalist class was reigning supreme by the middle of the 19th century.
>>7705239
Because they would keep their ownership and take away from the Church and middle class, just as they did here and other communist countries.
>>7705216
> Only in the USA.
Even in U.K and France, the two leading free democracies of the time. Italy, Spain and German had some notable individuals before their right wing authoritarianism.
> Marxism has always been a bourgeois academic ideology.
This is empirically wrong, mate. If you want to contest my claim that Marxism has and will be a working class movement ideology, please cite me some sociology arguing otherwise.
> It fails because it's hard to manage from the top of the ivory tower where you can't see the ground.
You make about three assumptions (Ideologies and specifically Marxism can "fail", anti-intellectual drivel about real world/academic split and academia somehow being a ruling elite in Marxist states) and several generally misfound anti-intellectual arguments of academia being Marxist (Not the case, check Bourdieu for 70s France, Gross and Simmon's working paper on the issue (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.147.6141&rep=rep1&type=pdf) for 2000s U.S. U.K doesn't have a study on the matter that I would have found, but you can start scanning through the descriptions of U.K uni professors on their uni's pages and quite easily see if they are Marxist (for one, the ones that are don't hide it). They aren't, in general.
>>7705251
Wanna give peer reviewed citations on that rather radical argument?
>>7705236
No anon, he will start a business and become a billionaire one day! Remember what Oprah and The Secret say: If you just works hard and smart and believes in yourself and think positive then you can make it to!
You're just being a sore loser, get a small million dollar loan from your daddy, then inherent 200 million and become a winner like Trump!
>>7704497
Stop you will trigger the protestants and their shallow materialistic lives!
>>7705251
The Bourgeoisie already owned and controlled society. They wanted to send themselves to the gulag so they could take more stuff from the Church? A church that was already a capitalist rubber stamp?
>>7705241
Those all predate capitalism by a millennia, faggot.
>>7705262
Everything you posted is pure anti-intellectualism.
>>7704456
This books is a good examples of the worst scholarship possible.
>>7705298
Nationalism and imperialism in their current form evolved under 19th century capitalism.
Scarsity in production, yes, but not caused by distribution - there are some resources of which there are enough produced to distribute to all parts of the world, and yet it does not happen.
>>7705267
It happened here on a massive scale and I've got legal documents to back it up, but it isn't in English so no.
I believe that whenever a person is a triggered retard on 4chan he will ask for peer reviewed journals, like that's something that gets posted here. Like fuck man, I don't care enough and normal people don't either.
>>7705295
Maybe in France, but certainly not in Russia and basically all other countries in which a revolution actually happened.
They took the fair traders, nobles and intellectuals to gulags.
>>7705320
> It happened here on a massive scale and I've got legal documents to back it up, but it isn't in English so no.
Please post them, I'll verify them tomorrow at my uni's East European language department.
>>7705192
>Almost all wars in the 19th and 20th century were the result of populist government. Scarcity, nationalism and imperialism were by-products of industrialism.
Marxism is an anachronism. Its understanding of capitalism is naively anthropocentric. Trying to overthrow capitalism is like trying to end the evolutionary arms race, or thermodynamic dissipation. It's a natural dynamic or order that organizes in certain systems at sufficient complexity.
Capitalism is a teleology, once innovated, it perpetually justifies itself, just like agriculture or the military arms race. The only end to it is its inevitable phase shift once the next threshold is reached - most likely the development of self-sustaining machine intelligence, that could perpetually do our work of arbitrage at the cosmic scale.
tl;dr, Humans don't steer capitalism, but the alternative is hard to swallow, especially for libtards with enough delusional self-importance to back the term "anthropocene".
>>7705354
> Capitalism is a teleology, once innovated, it perpetually justifies itself, just like agriculture or the military arms race. The only end to it is its inevitable phase shift once the next threshold is reached - most likely the development of self-sustaining machine intelligence, that could perpetually do our work of arbitrage at the cosmic scale.
But this is a line that is perfectly on line with Marxist conception of capitalism?
The system is created by economic facts. It will be crushed by development of other facts.
>>7705320
>Maybe in France, but certainly not in Russia and basically all other countries in which a revolution actually happened.
I think we are talking past each other. The bourgeoisie are people who own the means of production. It make no sense for this group of people to advocate the overthrow of their source of power: ownership. I think you mean to say that the people who advocated for Communism wanted to be the new power who replaced the Bourgeoisie. While it is true some like Stalin/Mao and other high party officials certainly did end up like that, many people genuinely were oppressed and controlled by rich overbearing landlords/nobles and capitalists.
"The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?" by Leon Trotsky goes into this.
>>7705315
>Nationalism and imperialism in their current form evolved under 19th century capitalism.
This is a literal non-argument.
I could say that acceptance of homosexuality in its current form evolved due to western capitalism. It's true but it doesn't change the fact acceptance of homosexuality predates capitalism.
Besides, nationalism has fuck all to do with economic systems. Many communist movements were fiercely nationalist, such as the viet cong and khmer rouge
Marxism is bourgeois ideology by and for upper class academia.
>>7705388
The thing is, nationalism empirically has not existed in its current form before 1600s. It's not homosexuality - it's a thought with a history we can trace to various different sources.
Because academics are lazy fucks who don't want to do actual work
>>7705402
>in its current form
You're arguing semantics. Just admit you're wrong. It's not your fault you've been miseducated.
>>7704456
As I understand it most of the actual philosophers that we consider in the Marxist tradition don't really agree with him, they just used him as a major point of reference. It's like saying Post-Kantian.
The people who in this day an age are actually still 19th century style Marxists are not serious figures.
>>7705364
>The system is created by economic facts
Historical materialism is probably the weakest part of the theory. It's not reflected by actual analysis. You can't blame him for drawing prescriptions from assumptions, since, much like the early works of psychoanalysis and anthropology of the same period, there were no means or field built to test them.
The 'progressive' modes of economy are not defined by increasing means of productions. The development of the state isn't the result of overcoming primitive scarcity, and so on.
There's also little reason to assume his predictions of the future progression will be accurate. I think it's a lot more reasonable to expect a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, i.e. on the machinic phylum, that would render the human irrelevant as the main vector through which capitalism operates than it is to presume a final post-capitalist socialist stage of civilization.
Perhaps humans /can/ organize a resistance against the beast. We didn't, as a whole, agriculture, despite its clear damages to our health and psyche. In the specific, Clastres did demonstrate an anti-state system was possible, one that consciously stove off the "progression" to post-scarcity, an Eden in stasis, but only in deep isolation from the arms race of competitive civilizations. Much like primitive organisms, they could only maintain their endangered form through seclusion.
Similarly, it might be possible to properly develop an alternative to capitalism. But it couldn't survive in the face of competitive forces. As a mechanism of survival it would need to be irrelevant. Given any reason to be consumed, e.g. storing valuable resources, it would be instantly by the behemoth.
As a race, we will surely achieve that irrelevance if capitalism does develop the means to leave us. But there's little reason to expect protection in the face of AI-grade resource exploitation.An alternative is unrealistic, but the possibility of self-destruction has presented itself in the form of Accelerationsim. It assumes Marx's identification of capitalism's internal inconsistencies is accurate, that the focused intensification of these inconsistencies is possible and that popularly organized effort of intensificaiton outpacing capitalism's self-regulation is possible and that the inconsistencies could truly take down the beast. I've little confidence in this and the question of what comes next is still up in the air, and finally, there's the question if it's actually a war we've any justification to wage
>>7705436
> You're arguing semantics.
No, I am not? There have existed ideas of a national identity since the Greeks and the Romans, but those identifications aren't in line with anything modern nationalism would consider a nation.
Haven't communists leaders consistently despised, and persecuted "urban intellectuals" i.e. you people.
>>7704770
>Paul Ricoeur famously dubbed that great triumvirate of late nineteenth - and early twentieth-century thought - Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud - "the school of suspicion," by which he meant those thinkers who taught us to regard with suspicion our conscious understandings and experience, whether the deliverances of ordinary psychological introspection about one's desires ("I really want to be rich!"), or the moral categories political leaders and ordinary citizens apply to themselves and the social world they inhabit ("an inheritance tax is an immoral death tax!"). "Beneath" or "behind" the surface lay causal forces that explained the conscious phenomena precisely because they laid bare the true meaning of those phenomena: I don't really want lots of money, I want the love I never got as a child; survivors have no moral claim on an inheritance, but it is in the interests of the ruling classes that we believe they do; and so on.
>>7704456
Marxism, and especially its new forms, spin-offs, and adaptations (Critical Theory), is a fun intellectual sandbox to play around in. What Marxism amounts to is a dystopian conspiracy theory, and Marxists have fun reading meanings into everyday things and the behavior of people, seeing it as all part of a giant apparatus of control and the controlled.
Of course, the whole thing is nonsense. Like religious belief, it is a very compelling way of viewing the world but is not supported by much of anything.
>>7705556
/thread
>>7705354
bruh, humans absolutely do steer capitalism, what do you think capitalism? regulation of private property etc actually are? how have they come about and how are they enacted?
if there was enough will then 'capitalism' could be gone in a week, but most people don't want that - it's a succesful system
to say a system that has only really been around for 300 years and only used by humans isnt antrhopocentric is laughable
>>7705743
>i doubt youve read much marx or crit theory
I'm starting to think that Marxists are actually taught to say this every time someone criticizes them.
>>7705757
Capitalism is older than 300 years. Just one example is Mercantile capitalism that was around since about 1500 and was overtaken by later forms of capitalism.
More to the point it is quite possible that the complex forms that human economies take are emergent properties that are not under any one agent's command.
>No Marxists in my philosophy department
Thank god. They save that shit for WGS - Women and Gender "Studies".
>>7705777
mercantilism was a markedly different system from modern capitalism though and only points to the argument of human control and power in deciding how to devise said system
capitalism is not some ethereal invisible and unknowable system, markets get desgined and altered and institutions are set up specifically to aid capitalism, such as central banks, ensuring private property etc - and these aren't set up by secret moon people, humans are quite good at it given the chance
>>7705802
I'm really not sure that markets do get designed. It is much simpler to assume that people simply saw an opportunity and took it.
Also mercantilism is different than say industrial capitalism, but monopoly or financial capitalism are just as different from the industrial variety. Central banks are acting on their own interests, they are opposed to the monopolists. They are not in cahoots with the owners of the means of production. What does happen, and I agree with you there, is that the very powerful collude with each other against the marginalized. This is a quality that every system of power ever has had.
>>7704456
That fact still remains that the people who produce and harvest our most basic needs - food, energy, shelter - are also the poorest people in the country/world who get the lease use out of them.
>>7704741
>Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order
This red herring is so red. Prove to me a human being is NOT reduced to social relationships in a liberal democracy. You won't because you can't because all your decisions are hemmed in by your economic means. Capitalism rewards bad behavior as often as it rewards good. What does morality have to do with your argument at all?
>>7705824
markets do absolutely get designed, as markets do not always pop up and function perfectly (not to say the never do), there are market failures etc
http://stanford.edu/~alroth/alroth.html#MarketDesign
i agree there are various forms of capitalism (it's a very adaptable and useful base system..). i didn't imply central banks were in cahoots with owners of the means of production, simply that it's an institution set up by humans that helps keeps the economy (i.e. capitalism) working decently, take a look at how much difference the actions of volcker had on inflation etc.
I agree on power, though capitalism has done quite well in actually allowing the less wealthy to attain wealth and power, though I think more could be done.
But I will go back to the initial disagreement. What exactly do you think capitalism and economies are if they're not anthropocentric? What do you think economics is the study of if not how humans interact in terms of goods, services, production etc? Seems remarkably well...anthropocentric and justifiably so.
>>7705177
Communism will work when people grow out of their infantile need to think of themselves as better than their neighbor.
FTFY
>>7705866
so...never?
you seem to be implying trying to do better than others is a bad thing and hasnt lead to a ton of human development?
>>7705850
>Seems remarkably well...anthropocentric and justifiably so.
I don't take issue with the word anthropocentric, I wasn't the one arguing about that. I just don't see that markets need to be actually planned. I know various institutions attempt to influence them, but at their heart all they require is people with differing amounts of information or goods.
It's like how evolution can do things that appear to be by design but is just the result of different pressures at work on different nodes.
>>7705875
If you think what I wrote implies that, hmmm no. Bate somewhere else.
>>7704484
>>7704497
Actually, the real tragedy here is that the person replying to the presumptive anti-marxist with a Bible verse, has in that reply accepted the frame (the possible but not necessarily Marxist apologist, that is) that 'success' (as opposed to the anti-Marxists' failure) is coterminous with wealth.
Quite the opposite, everyone is a failure in the most meaningful sense: everyone dies, and soon, thereafter going to no other state of existence, but sharing the same one undifferentiated void. You, we, all of us are going to to the same one place as Dahmer, Christ, Bowie...
t. not even a Marxist, just surrounded by capitalist and Marxist normies, both of whom are "materialistic".
>>7705891
fair enough, but market failure is a thing and has been heavily researched for the past 30 years, leading to some quite effective market design, so i disagree with you fundamentally
i don't care about an analogy, i care more about what academic economics has been doing, particularly with regards to game theory. markets do pop up on their own, but many markets also do get designed - this is fairly indisputible, though you can argue markets shouldn't be tampered with, but i think you would have to either be naive and unaware of the research done into market failure, or deluded - the ideal market is perfectly competitive, with symmetric information etc and no negative externalities but when they aren't, steps can be taken, particularly in healthcare and education as these are notoriously difficult areas
http://web.stanford.edu/~alroth/papers/engineer.pdf
http://www.nber.org/workinggroups/papers/MD.html
>>7705802
That capitalism's form has evolved over time doesn't suggest it's steered by humans.
>>7705757
>if there was enough will then 'capitalism' could be gone in a week, but most people don't want that - it's a succesful system
In an alternate reality where capitalism was not ideal, we could ditch it. Unfortunately, as you said, we can't. It doesn't matter if we identify it or are oblivious - to identify an arms race is to understand its nature as teleology. We're given no choice but to continue down the path it has carved for us.
>>7705850
>What do you think economics is the study of if not how humans interact in terms of goods, services, production etc?
Capitalism is anthropocentric in the sense that it uses humans.Until it doesn't.
What I criticized as anthropocentric is the hubristic ascription of agency where non exists.
I.e. to blame the effects of industry on the globe on humanity. the "anthropocene" it (ostensibly) caused cannot be blamed on humanity's intervention in the world, it's the result of capitalism's expansion onto our civilization's memeplex. It's as absurd as blaming the machines that produced that pollution.
At the outbreak of the industrial revolution, assuming self-preservation as inherent, no nation had a choice to industrialize or not industrialize. They were under existential threat to make full use of the resources at hand with the technology available. Just as hunter-gatherer tribes faced death or sedentary calcification.
How can you blame humanity for global industrialization? It's like blaming livestock and grain for their unchecked population-maximizing. Or blaming the mouse infected by toxoplasmosis, who rewire their brains to associate the smell of cat feces with eroticism, for rushing to his own death. They, and we, were lead to do so by forces beyond control.
>>7705978
I am not arguing anything about how things should be or what is ideal. I was responding to the idea that complexity can't occur without central planning. I don't even know what an ideal market is supposed to be, markets are contextual things that happen in specific places and times due to a host of circumstances, most of which the people in them aren't even aware of.
>>7706007
i disagree pretty much entirely with what you're saying although i see something resembling logic, albeit twisted
i would ask - how much agency do you believe individual humans have? it seems that you are giving very little and thus that is where i expect the disagreement stems from and won't be resolved
>>7706013
i've never suggested complexity can't occur without central planning, i wouldn't advocate central planning outside of extreme scenarious
market design isn't central planning
>>7704456
Slave morality
>>7706043
If you aren't outside of a system how are you going to design it? At most you know a portion of the information in it, and you have only limited resources and power.
The revenge of the underdog.
>>7705556
>>7705556
>Libertarianism, and especially its new forms, spin-offs, and adaptations (Anarcho-capitalism), is a fun intellectual sandbox to play around in. What Libertarianism amounts to is a conspiracy theory, and Libertarianism have fun reading meanings into everyday things and the behavior of people, seeing it as all part of a giant apparatus of freedom vs tyranny.
>Of course, the whole thing is nonsense. Like religious belief, it is a very compelling way of viewing the world but is not supported by much of anything.
>>7706043
>i would ask - how much agency do you believe individual humans have?
I don't think the quetsion of free will is relevant. We're discussion agency at the collective level. Does an ant or mole-rat lose its discreet individuality (or menger's methodological individualism) when it self-organizes into a super organism? Is that question relevant in examining the super organism's behavior?
I think the actual point of contention lies in the definition of capitalism. Its common use is in contrast to varying modes of organizing the economy: an economic system built on free market, private enterprise, minimal intervention from the state.
This isn't what I mean. I mean it in the most distant, encompassing definition: capital teleology. I.e. capital begets capital or the dynamic of capital accumulation. Socialism et al would be included; communism not.
>>7706143
That's hardly sensical. Libertarian theory isn't a sandbox nor is it founded in conspiracy, though its aesthetic appeal might largely be.
What it is, is an algorithm.
>>7706143
Cool strawman
The core problem with the American government is its dysfunctionality, not tyranny. There is no grand government conspiracy as there is a sort of bourgeois conspiracy in Marxism.
And libertarian positions on just about everything have overwhelming empirical support.
inb4 [citation needed]
>>7706157
>Libertarian theory isn't a sandbox nor is it founded in conspiracy
The Austrian School literally rejects empiricism because economic data doesn't say complete free markets are always the best.
If a Market fails they will search mighty hard to blame the government but when it succeeds they will automatically praise the free market, no matter how heavily or lightly those markets were interfered with by the government or how free those markets actually were.
What confuses me about Marxism is how both proponents and opponents make it out as the grand narrative or evil of our times; it seems that nobody opposes Marxism without REALLY opposing it, for instance. The nature of the polarization seems to go beyond cold war tendencies, even, it almost seems to be treated as a battle over the nature and fate of existence.
>>7706305
i cant tell if this is bait or not
>>7706318
There are two types of libertarians, the nutty Austrian school types and the actually reasonable Friedmanites.
>>7706305
>There is no grand government conspiracy as there is a sort of bourgeois conspiracy in Marxism.
Marx doesn't make it a conspiracy but a ruthless social system where people are protecting their interests and power. The bourgeois are people who are forced by capitalist competition to exploit and deepen control over workers so they wouldn't end up poor exploited workers themselves. You don't need a conspiracy.
>>7706370
I do not mean to say Marx held such views, but rather contemporary Marxists, who of course have abandoned the original words of Marx since they were clearly in need of revisioning.
Vanilla Marxism only exists on the internet.
>>7706318
That isn't a sandbox or conspiracy.
>>7706437
>That isn't a sandbox or conspiracy.
Yeah, its just a closed system of thought with the government as an ever present villain.
>>7706460
Okay? I get that you don't like it, but that doesn't make it a conspiracy or sandbox. "No U" doesn't always work.
Reductionist values of freedom vs. tyranny is not in any way "a giant apparatus," libertarianism definitely does not engage in "reading meanings into everyday things and the behavior of people, meaning" - the extent of its psychoanalysis is 'assuming informed and rational actors'/
The only criticism that makes any sense re-applied to libertarianism is the accusation that it's non-empirical, which is vague enough to apply to most any theory considering its knowingly incorrect shit flinging. Try harder or stop posting.
>>7706512
>>7706512
>is not in any way "a giant apparatus,"
Society and it interaction with the market can be seen as a "giant apparatus."
> the extent of its psychoanalysis is 'assuming informed and rational actors'/
Not according to Ludwig Von Mises who states that "Human action is purposeful behavior."
Purposeful not rational.
> the accusation that it's non-empirical, which is vague enough to apply to most any theory considering its knowingly incorrect shit flinging.
I said the Austrian School is non-empirical because of it's reliance on the use of Praxeology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology
>>7705556
You guys are so cute. You'll call marxism a religion then turn around and quote Von Mises and his ilk as if they were simple gatherers and interpreters of data.
>>7707148
to be perfectly sincere my relation, that is what it feels like when people attack some reactionary and then cite sociology studies on history/race/gender etc.
>x is an outdated and ridiculous belief!
>here are the studies on why!
>published by the Anti-x research group
That is basically what it seems like most of the time
>>7707174
Well, yeah. I never thought that Austrian "school" advocates were the only ones to use this tactic, but they're just as egregious as your SJW-related examples
"LOL you Marxists are all cultists. Now behold this completely neutral presentation of economic realities that I copypasted from the CATO Institute"
Thing is capitalism, to Marx, was never the result of some evil conspiracy of rich men. This is plainly obvious from even the most cursory glossing of Capital.
>>7705846
Are you retarded? Do you think that capitalism is the social order of choice for a pope?
>>7706305
What do you define as libertarian here. Academic consensus for economics is generally neo classical, and in the wake of Keynes and friedman. Generally put into the new-keynesian school. This automatically excludes some practices (based upon good research) such as tariffs, price controls and central planning. However, a social democratic model can easily follow good economic principles. As can a conservative one or libertarian one. However, more recent research into behavioural economics and the effects of inequality does start to draw questions around right wing libertarianism and how harmful it could be. So yes, citation very much needed.
>>7704603
We could live in a post-scarcity world but capitalism fails to reveal the liberatory potential of technology but have fun with your iPhone 6
Exists in the free-market. Therefore valid.
>>7704484
Marxism is Christianity m8
Christianity = Democracy = Humanism = Feminism = Socialism = Anarchy
These are all masks the same core moral system wears.
>>7708031
>We could live in a post-scarcity
this is the stupidest thing anyone ever wrote...how the fuck could we live in a "post-scarcity" society? do you think there is a like an unlimited amount of oil, cars, gold, luxury condos, moet, dentists and smart phones in a government vault somewhere but steve jobs tricked the government into not distributing them to the masses in order to sell u a fucking iphone? think for two seconds u dweeb
>>7708513
>marxism = christianity
it's so fucking obvious but edgelords of both marxist and christian variety in denial
>>7708544
>accuses someone of being stupid
>priority for distribution: oil, cars, gold, luxury condos, and moet
>>7704456
N Korea
>>7704792
considering how all government programs, taxes and welfare is called "socialist" by republicans nowadays
There may be a few who call all that socialism, but a few people who call themselves republicans do not speak for the entire party, dumbass.
Even considering the few who you might be able to say that about, they are most likely alluding to where those decisions "would eventually lead", which is the same sort of fallacy that you make, except you add more fallacies in your statement.
>>7709338
>a few people who call themselves republicans do not speak for the entire party
Sure, but if they are loud mouthed enough and the party doesn't disagree, then the party gets associated with whatever they are saying. How often has Obama been called a "Marxist" or a Muslim? I doubt you ever call them out on their lies because you think they are on your side.
>they are most likely alluding
Or they mean what they say. If they were alluding to the possible future then then should say so.
>which is the same sort of fallacy that you make,
How so?
>except you add more fallacies in your statement.
Like what?
>>7709561
>How often has Obama been called a "Marxist" or a Muslim?
That's not even a big stretch considering he was a community organizer raised in a muslim country.
>>7709561
>should say so
I have heard some of those who talk the way you describe say that very thing. Others who repeat it tend to skip over the entirety of the logical fallacy because it is
1. redundant
2. easier to get people riled up when you can make things sound as though they are a given fact instead of making a dissertation every single time.
Some politicians use these sorts of fallacies as central talking points, and other politicians have argued against those specific talking points or clarified that while they may agree with the negative sentiment, their viewpoint and proposed solutions are different in some way.
>How so? Like what?
Not all republicans say it, and those who tend to talk that way do not claim that all gov't programs are socialist.
>>7705005
Nice picture. It's like I'm actually on Facebook.
>>7704762
>king james version bullshit
The 9gag of fucking translations. Once again it's the Vulgate to the rescue.
>It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Shut the fuck up.
>>7708548
Haha. Breakfast cereal is flat screen TV. They both come in a cardboard box. Therefore same.
>>7704456
Because people are very susceptible to brainwashing.
>>7710763
does the king james version make up that line completely? or, whats a better translation?
>>7704482
>there were no other important right wing sociologists that merit being studied today
the modern university education everyone
>>7712444
that sure is an implication you just made
>>7705153
Problem is it's hard to gauge a good/bad economy between capitalism and state socialism, the latter was interested in keeping people occupied - not efficiency or growth/capital for it's own sake.
Part of the reason it was hit so hard during the oil crisis, cutting down on oil consumption would just make people loose jobs so it slowly grew more and more outdated.
>>7708031
At least with information, we could have post-scarcity. The problem there is not enough capitalism.
Marxism is merely a framework from which to launch investigation/interrogation of ideas and concepts. To believe that an economic or philosophical theory has the capacity to be "right" is anti-intellectual. The idea that there is a single value system or set of morals inherent to marxism... smdh u dumb Chicago school cucks.
