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True enough. But since Karl Marx was a communist I didn't bother to read his diatribe about capitalism. So compared to communism, capitalism is the way to go.
He was right in some of his analysis and predictions: mechanization of work, the squeeze on wages until they could no longer afford the items they create, obsession over arbitrary objects (*cough* IPhone *cough*), globalization, monopoly (or close to monopoly like with Wal-Mart), etc.
But, of course, he was wrong on other things, such as his prediction that industrialized nations would witness revolution of the proletariat first. I also believe he focused too much on the shopowners and not enough on the landowners.
Three hots, a cot, a job...
Blacks act oppressed today. There's another option.
Here's an interesting article by George Magnus, former Chief Economist at UBS, the biggest bank in Switzerland
The process he describes is visible throughout the developed world, particularly in the U.S. Companies’ efforts to cut costs and avoid hiring have boosted U.S. corporate profits as a share of total economic output to the highest level in more than six decades, while the unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent and real wages are stagnant.
I'll take the forty acres and a mule option, IF it's forty acres of my choosing.
Whoever had the brilliant idea to move our production output from the U.S. to the rest of the world, ie. Mexico, Korea, China, Bangladesh, most countries in the Middle East (oil) is responsible for the U.S. economy and OUR JOBS disappearing. And that was NO Ones fault but those responsible for the NWO. That was total B.S.
Or maybe we should have done what CHINA did under communism...regulate family size. And execute any violators...particularly the female gender. That would have certainly helped TODAY'S economy by reducing the number of "poor".
Yeah, I guess Marx was right.
I might compromise and give you the mule.
I'll take that bad boy. But I ain't giving up my job and my business!
Pony up!!!! :lamo
Awesome
A thread of people who have never read Marx
I have read the Communist Manifesto. I thought the whole thing read like a prediction of causes and effects. I didn't think it appeared to be Marx's vision for the world as it is often portrayed. He seemed to predict a constant cycle of capitalistic tendencies that would lead to communistic tendencies which would lead to capitalistic tendencies which would lead to communistic tendencies and on and on indefinitely.
Some people equate Marx with creating communism. When I read the Communist Manifesto I thought he was predicting communism rather than advocating it.
Was I using too much imagination?
Although I find it funny that Bill Clinton and Joe Biden both quoted the Communist Manifesto during the 2012 election.
So instead of answering my question you just go on an anti-capitalist rant. Thanks for wasting my time. :roll:Capitalism has put more people in poverty in terms of stealing indigenous lands, ruining the environment, denying people access to natural resources, and making people dependent on industrialized labor that rather than focusing on the production of necessities like food, places a focus on the production of various types of machinery that cannot be consumed for sustenance.
Its been pretty stable since it was introduced. China would still be wasteland if it wasnt for capitalism, now its the #2 economy in the world.Any system where the richest 85 people have as much wealth as the poorest 3 billion is unstable.
His vision didn't seem cyclical, but it's rather plain as day that he intended the advocation of capitalism to inspire the proletariat to "rise up" against the means-owners. I'm pretty sure that once his socialist utopia was created, it would stay in place through...well, let's face it - indoctrination and scare tactics.
You mean "mule up".
The million dollar question is whether that efficiency is possible under a purely capitalistic model. I really don't think it's possible. Having said that, I think it is possible under a model that has some capitalist elements. But that would not be capitalism, in the strict sense of the term.
Efficiency at one task frees more labor to take on additional tasks. Seeking to keep the masses simply very busy, yet accomplishing no more, is the very definition of economic failure.
I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure. Strict definitions generally don't apply very well to real life. I'm not aware of any pure Capitalist societies (or pure Communists, for that matter.)
My reading skills are not that good. I'll probably need to read it again. I think he was writing it at a time that was ripe for the proletariat to take their turn to rule the bourgeois. Do you really think that he was advocating an Utopia that would last indefinitely? I'd have to read it again.
So instead of answering my question you just go on an anti-capitalist rant. Thanks for wasting my time. :roll:
That's pretty much my take as well. The only difference that I have is that I think his problem was that his solution was to, in essence, get rid of the capitalist class. I think that's where the problem lies. I don't think that is possible. I said to someone else, that such an endeavor was like trying to stop women from trying to look pretty. It's just too fundamental to some people's nature to expect them to act in that way. And in my opinion, at the end of the day, that is what caused the failure of the attempts of people like Lenin. I think the solution lies in having a capitalist class that operates within certain constraints and that has been trained that it's ok to profit from business as long as it is done in a just, fair way, that is not destructive to the environment, that does not conflict with what is good for society as a whole, and that sees to the valid needs of workers.
That was a stupid idea to outsource the nation's manufacturing capacity like that. Unless, of course, you are one of the greedy bastards that got extremely wealthy from doing so.
Of course unionization in the U.S. was absolutely behind outsourcing. The union people cooked their own goose. The right to work states enjoyed some of the windfall of what industry remained.
Here's an interesting article by George Magnus, former Chief Economist at UBS, the biggest bank in Switzerland
SO
Was Karl Marx right about capitalism?
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