#48912: Alon Levy — 11/15  at  02:12 PM
Either way, it takes a serious crackpot to segregate knowledge into German science vs. Jewish science or working-class science vs. bourgeois science.

#48917: The Countess — 11/15  at  02:19 PM
I'm a Haymaker, too. That one nailed me good, except for the part about Marlon Brando being my Hollywood hero. Brando has never appealed to me at all.

#48994: Jonathan Badger — 11/15  at  07:46 PM
John Randolph writes:
"Attributing our standard of living to Marx, rather than to capitalism and the need of businesses to compete for labor resources, is absurd"

Victorian England was far closer to your beloved unregulated capitalism than modern society; oddly enough this "competition" didn't yield a very good standard of living. Nor could one expect it to; while a "competition for labor resources" works in the favor of employees in specialized situations (like programmers during the dot-com bubble), in general there are more people than jobs.

"Alon Levy" writes:

"Lenin screwed up Russia with his collectivization program"

No. There was very little collectivization in Lenin's reign. Instead, kulaks (wealthy peasants) were allowed to own their own land. It wasn't until 1929 (five years after Lenin's death), that the major collectivization program began (under Stalin's reign).

"Social scientists make predictions that come true or get discarded. Marx's predictions were contradicted, and yet Marxists cling to them"

Marx's predictions have only been contradicted if you assume (as some neocons do) that we have reached "the end of history" and the whole world is going to wear Nikes and eat at McDonald's like good Americans until the end of time. Marx himself never gave a time frame for his predictions. While a return of the Soviet flavor of Marxism is unlikely, I'm not convinced that industrial capitalism as we know it will survive the political and environmental challenges of the 21st century.

#49002: Jenna — 11/15  at  08:42 PM
I got Hardhat, but from what I've read in the comments about "Haymaker" I think I'm a good combo of both Haymaker and Hardhat. Hardhat seems a little strident to me-- I do let in doubts and accept contradictions, and I'm not really into Marx. There were some questions in which I wanted to add my own answer, particularly about the questions with children... and, I don't have heroes, but I admire path-pavers... plus I highly enjoy life, and work/play hard, but the description of Hardhat makes me sound anal.

#49040: — 11/16  at  02:01 AM
North Americans have a necessarily short perspective, since the process of producing that vital component for Capital to succeed - viz. a steady oversupply of wage labour - has only recently peaked.
This is because the US was a colony, not a society that had matured through a land-owning peasant class, and all people had initially free access to good cheap land, which they were able to turn into their own property and private means of production, thus hindering the maturing of your actual Capital.
Marx quotes E.G. Wakefields England and America "Where land is very cheap and all men are free, where every one who so pleases can easily obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labor very dear, as respects the laborer's share of the produce, but the difficulty is to obtain combined labor at any price."

Once US Capital got up and running, immigration of the first few waves of wage classes was given a great boost with that most yank bit of flim-flam, the "American Dream". The green card ads are still pushing it. Does anyone seriously believe it any more?
And the mighty US Empire? Not doing the best, you have to admit. Even though where it can continue to expropriate people's individual capital, as in establishing in a foreign country a certain company's cola beverage plant with prior rights to clean farm irrigation water and offering then to employ the displaced farmers, it will. And let's not look at Bhopal where a certain chemical manufacturer continues to not compensate for chronic illness and loss caused by a poisonous explosion. The private Capital there got knocked out, so the big global Capital is forced to close the doors and ignore its debt.
Otherwise it wouldn't make an increasing profit would it?

You might like to see how the next few years pan out for Capital, which in the US is undeniably now the global corporation. Global has already expropriated smaller Capital within the US and it's running like a rogue elephant right now. It truly resembles 19th Century British Capital in its excesses. It has needed the help of some fairly heavy-handed intervention on the part of government, such as the neo-cons in the US and the loony right extremists in power in Australia for it to artificially keep that labour pool overstocked and unable to demand fair price, but it continues to look down the shotgun barrels of either learning to get on with a lowering birthrate or importing a wage class (along with the ensuing mess when the labour market recedes in cycles) like the more mature European societies.
Nobody can deny, Shirley, that the French riots come from a wage class that was imported solely to provide labour and that has remained disadvantaged and ignored by the older society. Curfews and repression have never worked and they won't work in France. Same deal in the UK except that I am reading signs of a society that might be violently imploding from many different directions. For example, Tony Blair's government is getting injured from many different directions and not simply by Capital that's not getting as free a hand as in the US and Australia for example.
I wonder how low wages can be forced before the wage class in the US reacts? I doubt that a blue instead of a red government will make much difference now that the rot has gone this far. Where does the next wage class get imported from when Mexicans start moving South to work in the oil boom? Not all production can be moved to unregulated factories halfway around the globe.
The US has tried black slaves. Didn't work out well did it? They got all uppity and got to be Americans too. Now the neocons are cutting off the sizable pool of Muslim potential immigrants. Maybe dolphins will be trainable?
It looks pretty clear that the crunch for global capital is getting staved off with "downsizing" concurrently with relaxation of environmental protection.
Once this gets to its logical limits, both the environmental stresses that Jonathan Badger notes that accompany untrammelled Capital growth and the increase in violence, not only internationally but also intrasocially look pretty much set to demolish our fondly cherished brave new technological dreamworld. The revolution doesn't have to be people taking up arms to still be a revolution.
China might have more sense perhaps. Even now in this most energetic phase of Capital, it's consuming only 12-ish percent of the world's energy compared to the US, which imports 40 percent of it.
Don't assume that I am a revolutionary. I don't want violence. I'm so alienated from a society that looked like it would draw back from the brink of self-destruction in the 70s, only to surrender to Capital even more willingly in the 80s, that I am simply observing that Marx got it right.
All expropriators will ultimately be expropriated in the cycle of Capital. It's never been shown to be otherwise.
Interrupt the cycle to get different.

I wonder who will share around what's left of whatever comes out the other side of this particular cycle of Capital's sausage machine?

#49041: — 11/16  at  02:14 AM
"Nature as revealed by science is awesome enough for you, but it’s a nature that needs curbing and taming by us on our evolutionary journey to perfection."

HAHAHA! This one has me rolling!

Evolution's original meaning as a goal towards a predetermined goal, and the need for us to tame nature (as though we are apart from it) are right up religion's alley.

#49043: — 11/16  at  02:34 AM
I got "Handholder," but the end discussion fit the selections I made, as I understand it.

#49050: Alon Levy — 11/16  at  04:21 AM
Nobody can deny, Shirley, that the French riots come from a wage class that was imported solely to provide labour and that has remained disadvantaged and ignored by the older society.

Nobody except historical reality - the Algerian immigrants in France weren't imported; they came on their own accord seeking a better standard of living, and the French government didn't do anything about their plight because at first it thought they were only in France temporarily and then it didn't want to acknowledge ethnic divisions in France. Like many other problems, this one's due to incompetence, not a vast conspiracy to destroy good morals/the working class.

No. There was very little collectivization in Lenin's reign. Instead, kulaks (wealthy peasants) were allowed to own their own land. It wasn't until 1929 (five years after Lenin's death), that the major collectivization program began (under Stalin's reign).

Actually, yes; in 1920, if memory serves, Lenin collectivized agriculture, with the Communist Party declaring it would manage the peasants' land and tell them what to farm. As with all other cases of incompetence combined with arrogance, this one led to disaster.

Marx's predictions have only been contradicted if you assume (as some neocons do) that we have reached "the end of history" and the whole world is going to wear Nikes and eat at McDonald's like good Americans until the end of time. Marx himself never gave a time frame for his predictions.

If there's no timeframe, then the predictions are unfalsifiable. But at any rate, the predictions were falsified, because Marx said communism would triumph only in industrial countries; since there have been many communist revolutions since then, all of which were in agricultural countries, it's safe to say Marx's predictions were wrong. There's nothing in Marx about the challenges of the 21st century; he said nothing about the environment and scoffed at the idea that there were real differences between cultures.

#49057: — 11/16  at  06:27 AM
Alon Levy the Algerian immigrants in France weren't imported; they came on their own accord seeking a better standard of living, and the French government didn't do anything about their plight because at first it thought they were only in France temporarily and then it didn't want to acknowledge ethnic divisions in France.

I detect that you have a limited appreciation of metaphor and have also not studied either Capital, or The Communist Manifesto.
Read them or shut up please.

#49089: Jonathan Badger — 11/16  at  09:21 AM
"Algerian immigrants in France weren't imported; they came on their own accord seeking a better standard of living"

Were they born poor people from a land sucked dry by French colonialism of their own accord as well?

"Actually, yes; in 1920, if memory serves, Lenin collectivized agriculture, with the Communist Party declaring it would manage the peasants' land and tell them what to farm. As with all other cases of incompetence combined with arrogance, this one led to disaster."

Almost the exact reverse. In 1920, Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy, a pseudo-capitalistic system *encouraging* private ownership and entrepreneurship. This, like much of the rest of Lenin's policies, was later swept aside by Stalin.

"But at any rate, the predictions were falsified, because Marx said communism would triumph only in industrial countries; since there have been many communist revolutions since then, all of which were in agricultural countries, it's safe to say Marx's predictions were wrong"

Communism *never* triumphed anywhere to date. Communism as defined by Marx is what happens after the "dictatorship of the proletariat". the so-called "Communist" countries never got beyond the dictatorship, and were never Communist in Marx's sense

#49171: — 11/16  at  12:58 PM
How veddy, veddy English. I cannot imagine a similar test devised by American humanists asking about their gardens.

Marx was certainly, contra Professor Myers, an absolutist. The key word in dictatorship of the proletariat is dictator.

Alon seems to know something about the history of the USSR. Other posters are putting out false information.

Lenin began by forming squads to steal the peasants' grain and, if they objected, to shoot them. The NEP, which was pushed by Bukharin, was never approved by Lenin, who was forced to allow it because Lenin's methods were not producing any grain and the cities were starving; and, on the other hand, his urban methods were not producing any manufactured goods, so the peasants would not produce more grain to exchange for non-existent cloth and tools.

The NEP, which was just the low-level market economy of old Russia, worked better than any communism anywhere ever worked and within about three years had restored some stability to Russian urban/country relations. So it was discontinued and Bukharin was shot.

My hero is Rexford Guy Tugwell. Faced with the same problem as Lenin, he killed baby pigs and not farmers.

(I scored Hardhat but about a third of the questions didn't really offer an alternative I thought fit.)

#49176: Alon Levy — 11/16  at  01:19 PM
Were they born poor people from a land sucked dry by French colonialism of their own accord as well?

Irrelevant. Since every country in the world either is capitalistic or used to be, every problem in the world can be connected to capitalism. If you go down that road, you can blame the riots in France on almost everything - for instance, right-wing blogs have managed to construct a false frame that blames the riots on social democracy. But the specific policies that caused the riots aren't colonialism, because that happened in many countries without similar riots in a similar context ensuing, but rather indifference to ethnic tensions.

Communism *never* triumphed anywhere to date. Communism as defined by Marx is what happens after the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

It's the same with every radical movement. Capitalism as defined by John Locke supports the individual's right to the fruits of his own labor; therefore, the system under the robber barons wasn't capitalistic. Anton Drexler's Nazi Party was all about strengthening the German people and the state and not letting them get screwed over by unfair treaties, by communism, or by capitalism; therefore, since the Third Reich was in bed with big business, it wasn't a Nazi state. Jesus told the rich to give all their wealth to the poor; therefore, the Catholic Church isn't Christian, especially not the medieval Catholic Church.

Communism wasn't the first or the last movement to start out liberating and anti-authoritarian and become totalitarian once in power. In fact, the only ideological movement that never became totalitarian is anarchism, and that's only because it never came to power anywhere. Even liberalism created Napoleon and robber baron capitalism. The main difference is that liberalism also created very free and successful socieities, whereas socialism never has, unless you consider European social democracy to be a form of socialism, which Europeans don't and to my knowledge Marxists don't, either.

#49224: — 11/16  at  09:00 PM
In fact, the only ideological movement that never became totalitarian is anarchism, and that's only because it never came to power anywhere.

Actually, in parts of Spain in the 1936 revolution there, and in the Ukraine during the revolution there, anarchist communists had a chance to put their program into practice, and it worked. And in the rest of Russia during the revolution, factory councils and town food committees did just fine until the Red Army marched in and put them back under the heel of their old bosses, with a new bureaucratic structure imposed on top of that.

As for Marx -- he was right about some things, and wrong about others, but he certainly didn't invent class struggle. And in matters of revolutionary strategy, the seize-the-state folks have a really poor record, as others have pointed out here. In the original anarchist/statist split in the late 1800s, clearly the statists have been shown to be wrong wrong wrong.

#49234: — 11/16  at  10:09 PM
The rioters in France are ignorant, violent and useless.

The only difference between them and other Muslims is that they are in France.

So why is France, and not Islam, to blame for their condition?

#49250: Alon Levy — 11/17  at  01:54 AM
The only difference between them and other Muslims is that they are in France.

So why is France, and not Islam, to blame for their condition?

There's some contradiction here. You say that the difference between the Muslim communities that have rioters and those that don't is that those that have rioters are in France, and then that Islam and not France is to blame.

Actually, it's most of Europe that is to blame. The USA and Canada have little difficulty with integrating Muslims. Europe pretended there was no problem with minorities, refused to conduct official researches that would detect discrimination, let employers discriminate against immigrants, and thought that public housing could protect it from American-style riots. The end result is that France is having an American-style riot right now. If you're interested, I wrote a pretty extensive post on UTI about this subject.

#49340: Jonathan Badger — 11/17  at  02:13 PM
Alon:"The main difference is that liberalism also created very free and successful socieities, whereas socialism never has, unless you consider European social democracy to be a form of socialism, which Europeans don't "

That has to be the most absurd thing you've written yet. European governments are full of people from parties that name themselves socialist. The leader of Spain who came to power after the Madrid attacks is such a person.

Generally modern socialists simply support social democracy rather than central economies. The point is that social democracy evolved from more extreme socialist movements and not liberalism. And you can't ignore Marx in understanding where these movements came from, as much as Cold-Warriors like Buckley and Conquest like to demonize him.

Harry:"The rioters in France are ignorant, violent and useless. The only difference between them and other Muslims is that they are in France."

I hope this was sarcasm. I really do.

#50928: — 11/28  at  09:13 AM
A little correction: Schrodinger was definitely a mystic by his own claim and he had a very low opinion of using science as a comprehensive explanation or 'everything'.