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Karl Marx's Das Kapital

Starvos said:
American Capitalist Imperialism: 20 Million since WW2
British Capitalist Imperialism: 29 million Indians in the 19th century alone due to genocide

Absolutely incorrect. Collectivzation was due to private farms not producing enough food to feed the country
Yes, the government did export grain, but that was the only thing they could sell at the time in order to buy new farming equipment such as tractors.

Great leap forward? Poor economic planning and bad weather. No malevolent intent involved. Consdiering that Mao was responsible for the doubling of life expectancy, the ending of famines in China and the increasing of the population by 300+ million, I'd say that would make Mao one of the greatest humanitarians of all time.

Not an argument.

Freindly reminder that US forces used massive amounts of chemical weapons on Vietnamese civilians, routinely engaged in mass rape and committed horrible atrocities against the Vietnamese people. See My Lai massacre for just one example.

Let's also not forget the South Korean puppet regime and how they murdered 100,000 people on grounds of being "communists". See Bodo league massacre.

But I guess these aren't terrorists unless the terrorists do it with US support.
Now this can either continue to be a pissing contest, or we can just agree that the atrocities committed by both ideologies don't nessecarily discredit each ideology.
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Just watch the handwaving....

And what citation do you have for 20 Million since WW2?

And collectivization was FORCED on the farms.... The farms were producing for hundreds of years prior to Stalinist/Maoist policies came about..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

The Great Leap Forward

It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

Yeah, no malice there.....
 
ReverendHellh0und said:
I find it ironic you partook in the capitalist system to get your books. ;)
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Buying things isn't capitalist. Money existed for thousands of years before capitalism.
 
Fledermaus said:
Just watch the handwaving....

And what citation do you have for 20 Million since WW2?

And collectivization was FORCED on the farms.... The farms were producing for hundreds of years prior to Stalinist/Maoist policies came about..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

The Great Leap Forward

It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

Yeah, no malice there.....
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Lol what does that have to do with the GLF as a whole being malevolent? I see no evidence of Mao "ordering" the local bosses of abusing their power.
Soon anti-communists will be saying that "New evidence finds that stalin personally killed 30 billion people in the democratic people's empire of japan with his bare hands"
Absurd.

You've yet to address the well-known anti-communist US backed atrocties in South Korea... Let's refer back to the Bodo league massacre.

"United States official documents show that American officers witnessed and photographed the massacre.[20] In one case a US officer is known to have sanctioned the killing of political prisoners so that they would not fall into enemy hands.[5][24] American witnesses also reported the scene of the execution of a girl who appeared to be 12 or 13 years old.[9][20] The massacre was also reported to both Washington and Gen. Douglas MacArthur,[5] who described it as an "internal matter".[22][25] According to one witness, 40 victims had their backs broken with rifle butts and were shot later. Victims in seaside villages were tied together and thrown into the sea to drown.[23] Retired South Korean Adm. Nam Sang-hui confessed that he authorized 200 victims' bodies to be thrown into the sea, saying, "There was no time for trials for them."[20]"

How freedom loving and democratic!
 
doxygen said:
Is there a country attempting actual Marxism today?
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This is a misconception. You don't "attempt" Marxism so much as you apply Marxism as an analysis. Materialist interpretations of historical development, class conflict/struggle, etc
 
Grand Mal said:
One measure might be to compare the life of the average Cuban to the life of the average Jamaican or Dominican.
I won't cite Haiti, that'd be unfair.
I've toured Cuba. We sat on the deck of a paladare in Havana finishing the bottle of wine with a young architect who expounded, loudly, yards from a busy sidewalk, about how Cuba would improve when Fidel and Raul died. We also stayed in the old town of Trinidad with a black middle-aged woman who put her hand over her heart when she said, 'Che'. We never saw beggars, we never saw street prostitution, we never saw signs of drug trade, and this is us with a rented car and the run of the country. What we did see was a farmhouse, in the middle of nowhere, with the wall facing the road painted white and a big red cross on it. That's where a doctor had his clinic and anyone, including us, was welcome to stop there. We were there on Easter weekend and saw most of the town gathered while they carried icons out of the church and paraded them around town. Education is freely available, including housing for the duration. We saw kids, well-dressed and well-fed in the streets of the poorest sections, and going to school wearing uniforms.
I know the human rights failings of the Castro regime. I also know Cubans are WAY better off under the Castro regime than they were under Batista and his American masters.
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I think Michael Parenti was pretty right on this, almost 32 years ago:

https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc
 
Starvos said:
Lol what does that have to do with the GLF as a whole being malevolent? I see no evidence of Mao "ordering" the local bosses of abusing their power.
Soon anti-communists will be saying that "New evidence finds that stalin personally killed 30 billion people in the democratic people's empire of japan with his bare hands"
Absurd.
You've yet to address the well-known US backed atrocties in South Korea... Let's refer back to the Bodo league massacre.

"United States official documents show that American officers witnessed and photographed the massacre.[20] In one case a US officer is known to have sanctioned the killing of political prisoners so that they would not fall into enemy hands.[5][24] American witnesses also reported the scene of the execution of a girl who appeared to be 12 or 13 years old.[9][20] The massacre was also reported to both Washington and Gen. Douglas MacArthur,[5] who described it as an "internal matter".[22][25] According to one witness, 40 victims had their backs broken with rifle butts and were shot later. Victims in seaside villages were tied together and thrown into the sea to drown.[23] Retired South Korean Adm. Nam Sang-hui confessed that he authorized 200 victims' bodies to be thrown into the sea, saying, "There was no time for trials for them."[20]"

How freedom loving and democratic!
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The GLF killed 45 million..... BY THE CHINESE OWN ADMISSION AND DOCUMENTATION....

Add to that...

State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.
Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years' | The Independent

THAT is deliberate.

You keep going on about 100,000 when 45,000,000 are on the hands of Mao.
 
Starvos said:
Got Fat copies of Marx's economic book Capital: Volume I, I & III coming my way in the mail. It's considered one of the most unreadable books on earth

I've so far only read the trimmed version online in a PDF, but I'm ready to dive in.

Have any of you read Capital? What do you think of Marxist economics? Should Marxist economics be taught alongside other economic schools in universities?
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It's weird how much of Marx's writing may not be explicitly what Marx wrote given how many people were responsible for finishing and translating the volumes

The advice the most well read economics student I know (yes, a Marxist one) is to read everything you can. From neoclassical to post Keynesian. There's a number of pretty explicit Marxist economists like Ernest Mandel (An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory) and there's companions to at least the first volume of Capital I think the most well known of is David Harvey's A Companion to Marx's Capital https://www.amazon.com/dp/1844673596/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_KndAAb3HJMWWT
 
Starvos said:
So none of the things i've listed ever happened? I've given you sources and evidence and yet it's dismissed as "marxist propaganda". This is on par with holocaust denial.
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Nice try but I am not falling for your propagandist BS. I am dismissing those sources and evidence because of the dishonest use of them.
I love how you predict my thought processes even though you don't even know me or what kind of socialist i am.
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Your avatar is Che, it isnt hard to figure out what kind of far leftist that you are.

I've read the essential bits of Das Kapital. The majority of it attacks capitalism and promote marxist economics, nowhere does it even suggest socialism as a replacement. It's clear that you haven't read it, you've listened to people who have read it give their opinions about it.
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What do you think that "marxist economics" is? And FFS you have read the communist manifesto right?

Oh pulling the "That's not real capitalism" argument? Lol when the means of production are owned by the bourg, it's capitalism.
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I Never said what you quoted.

Real communism hasn't existed because a stateless, classless society hasn't existed.
Lol you have a very simplistic way of looking at things. Stalin and Mao weren't "Bad" neither were they saints either. They did great things for their people, but also made plenty of mistakes, such as the CPSU becoming too centeralized. But all of what your saying hints at a poor understanding of how the Soviet and Chineese governments worked, and how life was like.
Look up the first and second five year plans under the USSR and the historic life expectancy raises under Mao.
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As I predicted the Real communism hasnt existed argument. I have to admit you are a bit further left than I thought at first glance. You are actually an Stalin and Mao apologist. You really just said that Stalin and Mao were not bad? FFS thats like saying that Hitler wasnt bad or a saint either.

Your whole post was a series of strawmen.
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No it was me predicting the typical over done arguments that btw you are making anyways.

By the way, Che Guevara was a hero and a great military strategist, it's why hes my avatar.
His crimes consist of overseeing the execution of 200 members of Batista's government, all guilty of criminal acts against the cuban people.
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I dont care what your excuses are about the bad deeds of a dead guy.
 
Starvos said:
I find that very hard to beleive that cuba is a "failed experiment" considering that cuba has the doctor to patient ratio in the world, has the most teachers per capita in the world, gave it's citizens access to healthcare for the first time in cuban history, increased the life expectancy from 58 to 78, has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin america, literally exports doctors to other parts of the world, ended racism and sexism in Cuba, the list goes on and on.
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So when are you moving to Cuba?
 
Starvos said:
I find that very hard to beleive that cuba is a "failed experiment" considering that cuba has the doctor to patient ratio in the world, has the most teachers per capita in the world, gave it's citizens access to healthcare for the first time in cuban history, increased the life expectancy from 58 to 78, has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin america, literally exports doctors to other parts of the world, ended racism and sexism in Cuba, the list goes on and on.
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I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree regarding that.

I'm not disagreeing with most of the assertions you made, but I would not trade places with a "middle class" Cuban. It's nice they can all read and get basic medical care easily - the USA could take lessons there, but there's far more to the story than that.
 
Jesse Booth said:
Honestly, Atlas Shrugged is one of those books that would have been far better with a few hundred pages of filler trimmed out of it. We the Living is my favorite Ayn Rand novel.
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She wrote "Atlas" and "Fountainhead" while flying high on amphetamines. The sex scenes are some absolutely vomit inducing garbage, and I don't know how anyone could actually read Galt's 50 page or so rant without their eyes glazing over.
 
Desert Storm said:
Marxism (or extreme socialism) has not worked in the past, isnt working today (looking at you Cuba), and will not work in the future
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None of which means that Marx didn't have some ideas worth considering, even if to understand on a deeper level why they are wrong.
 
Desert Storm said:
Okay, and which ideas were those??
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Let's see...

1. That material is the primary motivation of human beings, and hence has to be figured into historical analysis.

2. That the wealthy form a class of their own and defend its borders, so to speak.

3. That cooperative economic systems have merit.

4. That religion is an attempt by elites to control the masses.

I'm sure I could think of some more if I had another five minutes or so. Note that I would not claim all these ideas are correct. However, any student of the history of ideas must admit that these have all been very influential. One cannot understand why and where we are today without understanding these. Additionally, these ideas have their own merits--even if they are not complete or correct on their own (and I would argue that they are not), that doesn't mean they have nothing to teach us.
 
Starvos said:
American Capitalist Imperialism: 20 Million since WW2
.
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if so why are you so afraid to tell us most obvious example of capitalism killing people rather than making them prosperous and rich.
 
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