/lit/ - Literature

>>6264451
Why do people still believe in Marx and Engels when their philosophies have been BTFO?

evolution occurs through natural selection

the dialectic occurs through mimesis on an dyadic level

your mind is now blown

because "escape from ideology" is ideology

>>6264451
>Why don't people believe in social science
Are the social sciences religions now?

Looks like a lot of >>>/pol/ posters are overstaying their welcome here

>>6264472
bang

Because Marxism proven itself to be exactly what Stirner said it would be almost 60 years before Lenin took power - a brutal regime where instead of money and property determining the value of a man, his labor and complience would make him man. Marxism cares as little for the individual as much as any other ideology.

>>6264451
The greatest trick modern leftism ever pulled was convincing people it too wasn't ideology.

I understand this is a bait thread, but why are humanities people so obsessed with Marx/Freud/other thinkers who have long since been proven incorrect?

>BTFO

Why do people talk like this and expect to get good conversation from it?

>>6264453
>>6264521
What are some good arguments against them?

>>6264533
There's very little about psychodynamics that has been proven, and quite a bit of it that doesn't really make any sense. For example, people develop fetishes all the time without seeing their mother's lack of a penis. If a writer conciously chooses to use psychodynamics theories in their work, then obviously Freud provides a useful framework in analyzing those works, but otherwise why still hang on to something so useless?

>>6264533
That slaughtering half of the population in order to cow the other half is not a viable model of governance?

Did you exist, or read about, the 20th century?

>>6264533
Mutually Assured Destruction

>>6264533

Several problems with Marx.
There seemingly is no march of history as he understood it.
People don't compare their economical status to people higher than them, but with their peers.
Labor theory of value.

>>6264555
Bourgeois history strikes again. How long are amerifats going to keep pretending the 20th century was some kind of globally enlightened age of prosperity comparable to the standard they enjoyed, just because it's when they had their empire?
http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar/article.php?article=74&category=8&issue=9

People still don't accept that the revolutionary science of Maoism is the only true science, people are strange.

>>6264509
...as the age of the individual is drawing to a close.

>>6264521

Eh, I wouldn't mention Freud in the same breath as Marx.

From everything I've read from Freud I'm convinced he has some great insights. It's not the all-encompassing philosophy of the human mind he thought it was but still, some of the individual things he said were really brilliant.

Marxism on the other hand strikes me as little more than an intellectual marketing campaign for some sort of thuggish populism. Marx's basic politics were advocated hundreds of years earlier by Julius Caesar and any other despot who championed populism... It only seems radical because of the rhetoric. The project is frankly almost reactionary in character.

>>6264594
>Marx's basic politics were advocated hundreds of years earlier by Julius Caesar and any other despot who championed populism

Wow, you're fucking stupid.

>>6264605
pls elaborate

>>6264521
[citation needed]
>muh trillions of people died!!!!
Capitalism has killed much more.

>Marxism
>science
he predicted a proleterian revolution that didnt happen(soviet revolution doesnt count, Marx said that the revolution must happen in an industrial nation). Can you call something a science if it makes wrong predictions?

Marx & Engels were themselves ideologues.

>>6264669
Caesar is the opposite of Marx, regardless if he helped the public. Marx is akin to Jesus, Caesar to a modern dictator, only a genius.

>>6264678
>Capitalism has killed much more.

Eh, not really. Capitalist countries have certainly killed people in wars and so on but war isn't on the same level ethically as purges and mass-slaughtering one's political opponents; sometimes war is necessary, you can't say the same thing about stalinist purges and gulags. There's also not a very solid track record of people dying because of capitalist economics per se, despite all of the muh feels about bad working conditions in the industrial revolution and sweatshops these situations still beat the heck out of the other options available in those times and places and therefore net-increase life expectancy. Hardly comparable to events like the Holodomor, the first soviet famine, and the famines under Mao, which are objectively and irrefutably traced to communist economic policies according to every credible scholar.

>>6264451
>ideologies were BTFO by Marx and Engels
>social science AKA Marxism AKA communism
teenager spotted

>ideologies were BTFO by Marx and Engels

>not Bastiat

>>6264759
I don't know, the Congo Free State was the largest mass genocide in world history, and it arguably was caused by capitalism. What the Belgians did (specifically Leopold) falls more under Mercantilism if you had to classify it, but Mercantilism and capitalism aren't all that different from each other. Exploiting an entire region for raw materials in order to gain that $$$ is kind of capitalistic as hell. The estimates of death ranges from like 5 mil to 20, way bigger than Holodomor, as carried out by Soviets.

>>6264579
You mean people dont constantly absorb media/have dreams to become like the rich? LTV doesnt even really matter. So doesnt the march through history and its not true that the march isnt true.

>>6264759
Capitalism is a feudal economic system. A feudal economic system is incompatible with a global ethical system; consequently as we approach true globalization, capitalism will crumble as every other feudal system has crumble because social ethics evolve in lockstep with social identity.

Pre - Enlightenment the old feudal system was called a kingdom; the king ruled over his kingdom and vied with other kingdoms for land and taxes, aided by knight and generals; he ruled over a peasant class that labored and supported the king's wealth and leisure by working in the fields and mines, turning over the greater share of the resources and wealth they produced as rent or taxes. The king's policies were defended and enforced by sheriffs... which are low men, raised to power and prominence by royal degree of the king, sheriffs who owed and gave their allegiance to the king. The kingdom sometimes conquered other kingdoms to become empires whereby the king concentrated wealth and power for himself.

Post Enlightenment the new feudal system is called a company. The owner or CEO rules over his company and vies with other companies for market share and profit, aided by lawyers and bankers; he rules over an employee class that labors and supports the owner's wealth and leisure by working in the factory (or the plant, or the office or wherever), turning over the greater share of the resources and the wealth they produce as profit or dividend. The CEO's polices are defended and enforced by politicians... low men raised to power and prominence by campaign contributions, politicians who owe and give their allegiance to the CEO. Companies sometimes merge to become conglomerates whereby the Owners concentrate wealth and power.

We still live in a feudal kingdom (by proxy), a feudal economic system. The only thing that has changed, other than the nomenclature, is the fact that kings no longer rule openly (in front of their sheriffs), taking the blame for the failure of their policies; the downfall and marginalization of the royal houses during the Enlightenment taught them a lesson; now the wealthy elite prefer to rule from the shadows (behind the politicians), letting the politicians take the blame for their failed polices, or rather, for the legislation bought and paid for by the ruling elite.

It is worth mentioning that every feudal system rises, corrupts, deteriorates and collapses; so will America and America capitalism. Capitalism is the Midgard Serpent, a great evil wrapping itself around the world. We need to unite, demand publically funded elections, abolish lobbying and the gerrymandering of congressional and senatorial districts, and an amendment to the Constitution outlining and protecting the rights of labor. We need a labor Rights Movement similar to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's to push this agenda through Congress and get it ratified.

>>6265053
>Capitalism is a feudal economic system
No it isn't. Reciprocal dues aren't extracted as corvee or payments in kind or remitted corvee or payments in kind.

Go to bed William. You are psychotic.

>>6264814
>Mercantilism and capitalism aren't all that different from each other.

Yeah man, no. Mercantilism was the historical middle point between feudalism and capitalism, but to call it capitalism just because it has some historical relation to it is ridiculous. Mercantilism is based on state trade, liberalism (which is the real name for what you derisively call 'capitalism') is based on individuals and non-state action, both businesses and private charities. Equating mercantilism with capitalism is like those faggots who try to say that naziism is leftist because Hitler's party was called the "national socialist german worker's party."

> Exploiting an entire region for raw materials in order to gain that $$$ is kind of capitalistic as hell.

What ideology doesn't exploit regions for raw materials? As far as I can tell communism is just as concerned about resource extraction as capitalism is.

>>6264582
I said it was exactly the opposite; a massive killing field of ideologies traced to Marx and Engels, wherein tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people were murdered "for the common good".

>>6264678
Hello insane person! How long do they let you use the asylum's computer?

Do you agree with this quote?

>“When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist, when asked if he is a “Newtonian” or of a biologist when asked if he is a “Pasteurian.”
There are truths so evident, so much a part of the peoples’ knowledge, that it is now useless to debate them. One should be a “Marxist” with the same naturalness with which one is a “Newtonian” in physics or a “Pasteurian.” If new facts bring about new concepts, the latter will never take away that portion of truth possessed by those that have come before.

Such is the case, for example, of “Einsteinian” relativity or of Planck’s quantum theory in relation to Newton’s discoveries. They take absolutely nothing away from the greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was able to advance until it achieved new concepts of space. The learned Englishman was the necessary stepping-stone for that.

Obviously, one can point to certain mistakes of Marx, as a thinker and as an investigator of the social doctrines and of the capitalist system in which he lived. We Latin Americans, for example, cannot agree with his interpretation of Bolivar, or with his and Engels’ analysis of the Mexicans, which accepted as fact certain theories of race or nationality that are unacceptable today.

But the great men who discover brilliant truths live on despite their small faults and these faults serve only to show us they were human. That is to say, they were human beings who could make mistakes, even given the high level of consciousness achieved by these giants of human thought.

This is why we recognize the essential truths of Marxism as part of humanity’s body of cultural and scientific knowledge. We accept it with the naturalness of something that requires no further argument.”

>>6265167
What truths? Ignore God, and kill people who dissent?

Do you even know that Marx ended his life living with his wife's father, a merchant, in London? Off of charity? As Marx was unemployable?

>>6265167

OP here. This thread was intended as bait but that quote actually got me thinking.

There IS something to what he's saying, but I can't fully endorse the quote. I do think that some of Marx's positive observations are basically just fact. The idea of the capitalist 'machine' causing alienation, the idea of class struggles as being essential to human history and that most ideological struggles are masks for what are basically class struggles, the refutation of Smith's idea that capitalist profits can be considered as "proper payment" to the entrepreneur.

These are great, world-changing insights.

That being said...

... I don't really think the normative side of Marx actually follows from his positive observations. You can subscribe to all of Marx's great insights about liberalism and still reject the platform of the communist manifesto whole-heartedly (as I do). Particularly, I think that libertarian socialism is a much more sophisticated method for human emancipation than the recommendations of the communist manifesto.

> inb4 "the communist manifesto is Marx's worst book read Theories of Surplus Value!!!"

Whatever you think about the relative merits of the manifesto compared to Marx's theoretical works, the fact remains that it's the only place where he lays out in plain language the specific political positions he wants to see implemented, hence it can be taken as the best indication of Marxism as a praxis.

>>6264533
History

>>6265183
Concepts of class struggle, exploitation, alienation and his overall analysis of capitalism.

I don't know much about Marx's personal life or the things he advocated for but that doesn't change that his ideas are all largely correct.

>>6265095
The only real difference is that is that in the kingdom, the peasant has brief control of the resources they produce before handing them over to the aristocratic landowners. In the modern feudal system, they do not even have that much control, since the product is shipped to be sold and the profits go straight into corporate accounts.

How can you not see capitalism is a feudal system? Employees must work and sacrifice the fruits of their labor or get fired, much as the peasant must work and sacrifice the fruits of their labor or get evicted from the land. Where is the difference? The structure has not changed.

Saying is has does not make it so, convince me with a structured argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Capitalist_regimes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_the_Soviet_Union

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_the_United_States_of_America

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_defectors
>The following 26 pages are in this category, out of 26 total.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_defectors
>Eastern Bloc governments argued that strict limits to emigration were necessary to prevent a brain drain. The United States and Western European governments argued that they represented a violation of human rights. Despite the restrictions, defections to the West occurred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_a_massive_communist_faggot,_please_fuck_my_face

>>6265218
>Whatever you think about the relative merits of the manifesto compared to Marx's theoretical works, the fact remains that it's the only place where he lays out in plain language the specific political positions he wants to see implemented, hence it can be taken as the best indication of Marxism as a praxis.


This is actually answered in Engels' 1872 preface to the English edition of the Manifesto:

>However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programdme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Association, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.

tl;dr: the recommendations of the Manifesto you're talking about were made in 1848 with the Great French Revolution as a model. 30 years later Marx and Engels already knew the 'planks' were obsolete. Their purpose was to supercharge capitalist development to make socialism possible...just like what the Bolsheviks had to do in Russia after the failure of the international revolution.

>>6265121
words, words, you are talking about nomenclature, the names do not matter, who is depriving labor does not matter... the point is the structure of the relationship between and elite class and a labor class has remained functionally the same throughout. labor works creates all value, and some other entity in power claims that wealth, depriving labor of the prosperity they deserve. the transfer of wealth from labor to the elite class is the source of all rebellion and strikes and such disputes.

>>6265258
Marxism should still be taught in schools regardless of the amount of people it's killed.

Einsteins special theory of relativity lead to the creation of the atom bomb and Darwin's theory of natural selection paved the path for eugenics but they're still important thinkers and their theories are pretty much fact.

>marxists only ever want to judge Marxism by its theory and never it's practical application
>marxists only ever want to judge Capitalism by its practical application and never it's theory

>>6265258
You no the defining aspect of anything entitled a 'regime' is totalitarianism.


People really need to learn the political spectrum.

>>6265296
Yes but Einstein's and Darwin's theories have been shown to work

>>6265218

Dude, thanks for this post. No seriously, I'm actually grateful to you for this, you've helped me worked out one of my lingering reservations with Marxism.

>>6265304
I would actually love to see a market system without state aid to already greatly advantaged individuals and conglomerates.

>>6265304
But Marxism is a theory of the economic system of Capitalism?

>>6265336
Don't be a faggot you know what I mean when I say that.

I'm not going to argue literal semantics with you

>>6265324
Ehhhhhhhh man... Don't most Marxists argue that social democracy (that is a capitalist-fueled system with a welfare state) is some kind of bourgeois buyout effort or something?

>>6264591
How is this the age of the individual? You mean the age of identity? They are completely different.

>>6264678
At least Capitalism got me food in the grocery store (and toilet paper for my ass, hello Venezuela). If you are going to kill people, at least make it worthwhile.

>>6265308
The political spectrum is something of an illusion; it gives the false impression that there is some fundamental difference in the various systems.. there is not. the underlying structure is the problem, and until that problem is addressed no real change is possible. it will never matter whether a king, a dictator, communism or otherwise, a corporation, a plutocracy or a capitalistic democracy, or whether the democracy is real or imagine-- a people ruled and abused and deprived of the natural fruits of their natural labors, will tend to deteriorate and collapse because we are social tribal beings who evolve niche is sharing in fellowship. the feudal structure of the elite and labor class in which the elite horde resources is unnatural to us.

Marxism provides great critiques but horrible practices. Its a debugger, not a processor.

>Every single time it's tried either conquered in a month or turns into a horrible totalitarian dictator ship with no human rights and occasionally genocides a few million people

>bit this time it won't guies I swear. Let's try again

Are you familiar with Hobfolls Conservation of Resources model of stress, 1988, it s=defines stress as being caused by the loss of valued resources and it is the gold standard for stress psychology. if loss of valued resources cause stress what could possible cause more stress for society that the transfer of wealth from the labor class that creates all wealth to the elite class. it is the structure of society that creates all social stress and the resulting violence over resources. especially when the elite class grows too large and greedy that labor cannot support them. anyone who is not creating intrinsic value must be supported by labor. you can eat paper work and you can't sleep in a filing cabinet. the more the ruling, officed owners take from labor, regardless of what they are called at any particular time I history, the more likely it is that the majority of society suffers, society deteriorates, and rebellions and strike occur.

>>6265451
It's more accurate to say we've tried different ways of *transitioning* to communism but we've never been able to see them through.

>>6265385
Damn
that is a great argument

>>6265494
Kill yourself, you brainwashed, pseudo-bourgeoise, pontificating idiot.

>>6265506
no u. Go back to reddit with your le communism only works on paper not in real life XD.

>>6265385
But what good is food for a little or a clean ass when society is bound to deteriorate and self-destruct. every feudal system collapses

>>6265527
>laughing collapsed soviet union
>laughing standing Western Europe and United States

>>6265523
>every time it's tried IRL it fails

>>6265542
laughing, Europe and America administrations fail and fall every time elected officials are voted out of office. the election process broadens the arch, perhaps, but the collapse is certain. European feudal systems have been collapsing for thousand of years, the American system collapsed with the America revolution, and in the two something odd years since the feudal government has not collapsed, but that's to be expected.. two hundred years is not long in the grand scheme of thing--but capitalism, a feudal economic system, collapsed regularly. every time we have a market crash, recession or great depression, capitalism fails.

laughing

>>6265567
Communism has never been tried. Fact.

>>6265571
Communism is impossible to try. Fact.

>>6265569
I don't know what you just said

>>6265591
He redefined "failed" to try making it seem like the Soviet Union collapsing wasn't a big deal and communism can still work.

>>6265602
Given that wage labour and the value form existed in the Soviet Union before there was a soviet union, the creation of the soviet union wasn't a big deal.

>>6265571
I agree, in its pure form it has never been tried, that's because the greed of leaders gets in the way and they start acting like capitalists.

my point is that capitalism and communism are both feudal structures, no economic system that exists with in a larger feudal framework can ever work for long, because the feudal structure itself tends toward corruption and deterioration.

the evolve order of humanity, our natural niche, is tribalism. feudalism is unnatural to our social instincts.

conservatism and capitalism will always fail because we are tribal by nature, and the consequences of conservative and capitalistic values goes against our moral tribal nature.

liberalism and communism will always fail because it exists within a feudal framework, the consequences of liberalism and communism break down the feudal structure, and that seems bad to most people.

but when critics say society is falling apart because of liberalism or communism, the wise person will say great, the corrupt society is falling apart, let it fall and we will rebuild, not a another feudal society, but a tribal one that agrees with our innate social dispositions.

>>6265588
You're looking at history and making a guess. Not a fact at all.

>>6265569
>the United States has existed as a classically liberal Western Democracy for 238 years 8 months and 9 days
>The Soviet Union only lasts 68 years 11 months 21 days
LOL
O
L

>>6265617
>implying anything is more tribal then loosing 1000000 people into a free and unregulated market without government intervention

>>6265629
the confederacy of dunces is meeting at reddit, so...bye

>>6265633
not sure I follow what you're saying. can you rephrase in more detail?

>>6265617
Define tribalism please

>>6265629
>>the United States has existed as a classically liberal Western Democracy for 238 years 8 months and 9 days
I see you know nothing about the history of democracy, republicanism and popularism in the United States.

>>6265683
>this free liberal democracy has weathered all storms thrown at it and has adapted and changed to fit its environment

> The most powerful communist nation to ever exist can't weather a single Cold War

>>6265672
tribalism is a unified society of people that work together and share resources and prosperity, more or less equally.

feudal society is a society devided into a ruling elite and a labor class. the ruling elite claim the vast majority of the wealth and resources labor produces through the artificial device of ownership, kings owned the land and the modern elite own the factories.

tribal society is naturally occurring, with no beginning and no end; it goes on endlessly and it the natural state of humanity.

feudal society is created, corrupts, deteriorates and then collapses. and is characterized by constant rebellion and strikes of labor again the ruling elite

>>6265704
So you want, and expect 7 billion people to simply work together and share resources when all they have to do to gain an edge over their fellows is to band together in a hierarchical organization and conquer the rest of the people through force of arms?

>>6265696
Argument by distraction is a fallacy friend.

You made a claim that the United States was a classically liberal Western Democracy for 238+ years.

The United States has had mass disenfranchisement of human subjects throughout its existence; however, this isn't the critical point. The point is that until the 1820s the US was essentially a Tory state run by conservative Whigs.

Given that you're factually incorrect about basic history, why should anyone esteem any statement you have to make about social reality?

>>6265696
slavery lasted for over four hundred years in the New World, the temporary durability of a system has nothing do with its morality, or whether it will exist forever.

a natural system does not need to be maintained by force. the police state forming in America, and the militarization of the police, is mechanical control. anyone can hold a system together by force for a while, but it will collapse in the end. it alwys does

>>6265711
no, not through force. don't put words in my mouth, please

Here's my line of reasoning:

>Count how many developed / 1st nation countries there are in the world
>Count how many are capitalist
>99% of them
>Capitalism wins.

Its really that simple everywhere that has been successful, progressive and productive has been capitalist where it seems as if communism/marxism almost invariably leads to stagnation, authoritarianism, regressive revolution or worse.

I think that there is an eerie similarity between the eventual path that both fascism and Marxism lead to. George Orwell wrote a number of interesting essays referencing what he saw as the close relationship between the two.

They're not the same. And they my night always lead the same place, but vehement Marxism seems to often instill ideological subserviance to people as well as empower an oligarchy to undo power.

Direct democrazy / decentralized government is a pipe dream.

>>6265053
rofl.

>as we approach "true" globalization capitalism will crumble.

You basically have two options here:
>A) No true scotsman.
or
>B) You're wrong.

Because globalization has been instigated, enriched and accelerated by capitalism. Its the driving force behind the whole thing, and has only become more and more powerful arguably.

Also you seem to conflate American capitalism with "capitalism". American politics is retarded because they certainly allow corruption and bribing.

>>6265167
But that's retarded.

You're comparing social science to empirical science.

You're comparing something that can and does have a 100% factual prove to it. Something tht can literally not be undermiend because of its basis in mathematics.

To something that is highly rhetorical and theoretical to the point that it has remained popularly debated and debunked for over a century. Regardless of whether or not you acknowledge that, you must concede that the nature of that discipline is inherently less determined than science.

Its a false equivalence of the highest order.

>>6265755
do not confuse "stagnation" with slow, stable, tribal growth of everyone. slow stable is growth should be preferable to the rapid, unstable growth for a few associated with the feudal structure.
its the capitalistic expectation of rapid growth that is the problem.. and immoral
don't dismiss tribalism because tribal reality falls short of the feudal fantasy.. or rather, the American dream

>>6265617
Here is you:

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It gets tiring after a while.

>>6265773
human society is not a mathematical equation, system theory informs of society, but so does game theory. and if you want to talk about proving something, all of human history, form the FALL from tribal grace until now, has been an exudative testament to the feudal system collapsing repeatedly.

>>6264451
>implying

>>6265774

It'd be more fun to test my belief systems in bait threads if you tried harder. Just look up median house hold income or other factors and see which countries show up.

Even when the richest part of society is experiencing explosive growth that is disproportionate to the "proletariat" they will almost always bring prosperity and improvement with them.

>>6265792
it does not work and never will, the feudal structure that is.

>>6265781
I would construct a reasonable and humane opinion based on measureD study of historical context, but I'm too busy MOVIN' DEM GOALPOSTS

>>6265796
which is great for a few , I guess. but it comes with all the suffering and war and rebellion that goes along with the feudal structure. the wealth of the few s predicated on the poverty of the many. great wealth requires great poverty, requires a master class ruling, and abusing and depriving a slave or labor class

>>6265742
No no

Those are my words

Because as soon as everyone else breaks up into a "tribalistic" society i'm going to band together with my local group of rabble-rouser's and conquer the shit out of all of you faggots

My question is how are you going to stop me?

>>6264687
> Can you call something a science if it makes wrong predictions?

Yes, but only if it revises it's hypotheses to account for new data. Marxism, of course, doesn't.

The problem with Marxism is that according to his notions a manager in well prospering company is proletarian while guy who sells hot-dogs on the streets is a bourgeois with means of production. Marxism simply doesn't apply anymore to our reality while still being valuable social theory. As many contemporary thinkers have already pointed out - we lack language to describe some phenomena.

>>6265816
a more sensible view that agrees with tribalism is that anyone who either works for himself without employees, or treats share 60% of profits with labor, is proletarian and any one who claim the vast majority of profit for themselves is bourgeois.

>>6265816
some lack the language, others lack the will, the insight, and the ability to see relationships right in front of their eyes

>>6265868
and then there are those that can inly regurgitate the jargon-infused rhetoric of ever scholar that came before them, and are perfectly content to be a satellite rather than a system.

Marxism has been BTFO by archeology. Pic related. "Muh base precedes the superstructure", Gobekli Tepe shows religion preceding agriculture by millennia, the entire theory of alienation, the idea that social phenomena Marx didn't like, such as class violence and religion, were based on division of labour was BTFO.

The only reason Marxism is still taught at universities is because it's praxis theory greatly empowers intellectuals bent on "changing the world" in ways that give them more power. But it has nothing to do with the hard, scientific Marxism of the Orthodoxs, and more with the "Cultural Marxism" (yeah, i used that term) of Antonio Gramsci and Ernesto Laclau.

>>6265816
>The problem with Marxism is that according to his notions a manager in well prospering company is proletarian while guy who sells hot-dogs on the streets is a bourgeois with means of production.

Petty Formalism. Marx talks about ownership as control over capital. A manager exerts this. A hot dog seller is a dependent contractor.

Bother to fucking read the texts you claim to critique you arsehat.

>>6265883
Intensive gathering societies alienated the natural: the base precedes dickhead. Try Mutual Aid by Kropotkin.

Yes the bourgeoisie 99.99% of the time control the education system.

The public/private grade school system, and the college university system, is all functionary and an ISA like how Althusser said it was.

>>6265883
how does religion preceding agriculture in any way prove the base doesn't proceed the super structure? I think the process of getting food and building shelter could have easily still preceded religion.

>>6265385
>At least Capitalism got me food in the grocery store (and toilet paper for my ass, hello Venezuela). If you are going to kill people, at least make it worthwhile.

Of course imperialism gives groceries and toilet paper to the privileged.

>>6265816
read and EO Wright if you want a more updated version of a marxist on class

>>6265912
Read Marx on "primitive communism" amongst the Germans and you'll start to get the research problem. The categories Marx used are in conflict with themselves. Germans held slaves, practiced sacrificial religion, divided social property amongst classes, etc.

Marx mistakes the apparent communal holding of land in common as a common form of property and appropriation. Whereas, of course, sacrificial religion is a key indicator of class society.

The other anonymous is claiming that agriculture is the differentiator of the first class socities, rather than class or differential appropriation. Because he's a fucking weberian and can't see the sky for the cunt flaps of posterity stifling his breath.

I had a dream last night where I became the Tsar of the New Russian Empire. This morning my mother yelled at me about my lack of a job and called me a loser. Can you put two and two together?

>>6265918
>le imperialism is an inherently capitalistic trait
The Croatians, Bosniaks, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Finns, Mongolians, Kazakhs, Vietnamese, Czech, Slovaks, Bulgarians, and Romanians would like a word with you

>>6265918
The United States has toilet paper without having an imperial empire

>>6265920
EO Wright is a fucking instrumentalist stratificationalist. There is nothing "Marxist" in his analysis.

>>6265944
The Soviet Union was a wage labour society where the value form circulated in expanded reproduction. See Chapter 1 for why that's capitalistm.

>>6265951
>muh true Scotsman muddafugga

>>6265912
>The public/private grade school system, and the college university system, is all functionary and an ISA like how Althusser said it was.

Only in America, if only.

>>6265951
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union

>>6265957
>>muh true Scotsman muddafugga
I don't know, but predicting in the 1860s that any wage labour society would be capitalism is a pretty prescient prediction dickhead.

It is almost as if the category of communism is a society without wage labour. Oh wait, it fucking is.

>>6265969
Yes, and the two US parties of rich oligarchs are respectively called the for-the-publics and the civil-people parties.

>>6265976
So you're full on tinfoil "it's a conspiracy" crazy huh?

>>6265976
Wage labour is not even a valid concept, but a buzzword used mainly for agitprop purposes.

>>6266004
Why does there need to be a conspiracy. The value form coordinates people's behaviours, even when they behave rationally and without criminality. When they behave irrationally and criminally it only further coordinates people's behaviours. The wage labour and the boss both.

Regarding political parties, organisations being named after the things they directly oppose is a common place. Napoleon III was an early master of it.

>>6265976
>communism is a society where you don't have to work
AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAA

>>6266009
You do realise that there are forms of human activity other than wage labour. Some of the most common include hydraulic corvee, slavery, tributary extraction, feudal corvee and tax in kind, chattle slavery in capital, domestic labour, primitive communal endeavour.

wow these marxist threads are pure garbage

>>6265976
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz

>In a kolkhoz, a member, called kolkhoznik (кoлхóзник, feminine кoлхóзницa), was paid a share of the farm’s product and profit according to the number of workdays, while a sovkhoz employed salaried workers. In practice, many Kolkhoz did not pay their "members" much at all. In 1946, 30 percent of Kolkhoz paid no cash for labor at all, 10.6 paid no grain, and 73.2 percent paid 500 grams of grain or less per day worked.

Not much "wage labour" here, i guess that counts as communism?

>>6266027
>Not much "wage labour" here, i guess that counts as communism?
You're citing wikipedia? I guess you were raised dumb.

Have a go at Strauss who discusses how kolkhoz norms functioned exactly like waged labour, largely due to the specialists and party members control over capital, as enforced by the MTS. https://www.marxists.org/archive/strauss/part7.htm

Don't know what an MTS is? Don't open your fucking mouth on soviet agricultural labour.

>>6266027
Working for a wage paid in grain is still wage labour.

>dfw capitalism wont fall during your lifetime
>dfw upper-middle class

>>6266047
Well, good, that's all that matters, as long as we're ok, fuck the rest of humanity for generations to come

>>6266054
You don't talk to them, you just cut their necks.

>>6266054
>dfw capitalism will continue to lift millions out of poverty as a direct result of the increase of capital and the cost reduction of basic need goods.

>>6266063
Mai nigga.

I mean, OP already explained earlier that this is a b8 thread, but its sad that people actually believe marxist and communist bullshit.

Anarchy and communism is reserved for edgy teenagers who have identity issues and want to be a part of something "revolutionary"

>>6264738
>Marx is akin to Jesus
Lel

>>6266063
>>6266232
I see you've both never read Marx.

>>6264451

>2015
>being a Marxist
Hello, centrist here. This is it guys. Your utopian ideologies are just that, utopias.

This is as good as it gets. An informed, democratic, capitalist society that manages to find a balance between the selfish pursuit of profit, liberty and happiness without destroying equality of opportunity, and vice-versa, a strong government that protects equality of opportunity and human decency without trampling on the basic liberties and incentives necessary for people to produce and create.

Extremes don't work. When pushed to the extreme, the right wants order at the expense of equality and liberty, the left wants equality at the expense of liberty and order, and libertarians want liberty at the expense of equality and order... but reality shows that for a successful society to prosper you need a healthy balance of all three components.

Communism and Fascism, with their utopian speeches and "end of history" approach, have been nothing more than excuses for tyrants to fuck up and oppress their fellow men.

If you haven't figured this out after 9,000 years of human history I have nothing more to tell you other than this: Fuck you totalitarian swine.

>>6266232
Statist detected
Why don't you go and kill innocent people you swine?

>>6266415
You talk from experience. I'm not about to spout "muh perfect communism has never been tried" but stating (heh) that anarcho-capitalism would never work because order can only be created through government is as silly as saying that true communism has never been tried.
In any case, I don't see anybody getting harmed in some white, idealistic, middle-class males moving to New Hampshire in order to try out their hand at true libertarianism, unlike those silly Socialistic communes of Fourier and Owen back in mid-19th century which still called for coercion and centralization of education and income redistribution.

the day /lit/ finally gets deleted I want you faggots to remember this fucking thread

>>6264451

Because state control usually leads to excessive state power.

Capitalism + A strong safety net is the way to go.

Neither marxism nor capitalism or "objectively correct" yet, because there isn't even close to enough empirical evidence.

Capitalism does seem to have the upper hand though. Since the communist USSR fell the number of poor people has declined hugely, the number of democracies has shot up.

>>6266415
>That meme at the end

OH SONOFABITCH

>AKA Marxism AKA communism?

>>>/reddit/marxism
>>>/reddit/communism

>>6266516
>Civilization as we know it existed for just about 10,000 years
>Being a thousand years off makes it a meme

>>6266347
I see you've never observed Marxism put into practice

Also, I see you've never seen the effects of capitalism breaking millions out of poverty, like in the old Soviet bloc

>>6266500
How did those silly socialistic communities of the Ukraine work in the 20th century?

>>6266534
It was just a joke dude

>>6266841
>namefag going out of their way to be a faggot

>>6266850
>I'll give them attention xP

You're why I bother to fill out the field bud.

>>6265385
>Me, me, me!

>>6266821
>Also, I see you've never seen the effects of capitalism breaking millions out of poverty, like in the old Soviet bloc
The evidence associated with this claim goes against fact. The claim is true by other evidence though, as Marx pointed out. At length.

>>6266415
It's almost impressive how much ideology can be packed into such a small post.

>>6267364
>It's almost impressive how much ideology can be packed into such a small post.

"Rights".

Enjoy, cmde.

>>6265569
What you're arguing against ins't the inherent failures of the capitalist system but the inevitable fucking truth that shit changes and no one can predict the future

Which is quite frankly hugely immature; a communist system is no more enduring that any other political system, simply for the sake that it's a fucking human system.

>>6267376
>Private Property

HehhehhehhehHEH

>>6267393
Well "V" is technically a smaller expression that private property.

>>6266821
>I see you've never observed Marxism put into practice
>assuming we have observed 'true' marxism and not just degeneracies of Marxist thought

>>6264512
Nice one

>>6264451
why do people srill believe in marx when marx was btfo by history?

>>6264451

>ITT: People who have never read Marx and Engels

>>6264451
Aren't Marx and Engels still ideologies technically? They just express a completely different type of argument. I think you're contradicting yourself and kind of talking out of your ass, anon

>>6264451
Ok, Its a nice flame thread, but lets get back to the /lit/
I am just reading Atlas Shruged and why the fuck do the people praise it so much?
Its not that horrible, and some parts are really nice, but some of the almost made me throw that shit away, and never pick it back. (The talk in the begining about Dagnys childhood is fucking unbearable).

>>6267586
who is this gorgeous creature

>>6267586
Oh you just wait till you get to Galt's speech, probably the worst piece of philosophy ever written by anyone in existence at any given time or place ever.

>>6267576
No. Marxism is a science, not an ideology.
Marxism-Leninism is an ideology that uses the science of Marxism to prop it up.

>>6267599
>marxism is a science
Nonsense, marxism is a critique.

>>6267591
Billie from Boardwalk Empire.

>>6267606
thx bro

>>6267591
Dont know, scene is from downton abbey tho.

>>6267597
The thing, that striked me the most, is how much hate I am able to feel towards the main characters.
And I am and always was in the right side of the political spectrum, but this whole: "We are so great and everyone else is lazy, evil, pretencious and amoral leech is like something you would pick from /pol/.

>>6267599
social science then. But don't those still depend on some maintenance of an accepted premise that may or may not have been tested rigorously enough to say it has yet to be disproved?

>>6267477
>muh true Scotsman
>it's not our fault every time it's tried it fails

>>6267316
Evidence associated with this claim goes against fact?
I see rising standard of living across the planet due to the decrease the cost of goods and rising wages

I don't know what fax you were looking at

>>6267599
Marxism is a science the way young earth creationism is a science

You wanting something to be a science doesn't mean it's a science

>>6264451
>ideologies were BTFO by Marx and Engels?

Why does this scientific theory fail at every given opportunity?

Why did communist countries have the worst economic growth in the period after World War II well capitalist countries doubled if not quadrupled there GDP?

>mfw The Soviet Union in 1990 couldn't even beat the United States in 1910

SCIENCE
C
I
E
N
C
E

>>6268127
Well spooked, my property!

>>6268164
Is that from Wikipedia? Mind giving me the link?

Also, do Stalinist states count as Marxist?

Fucking commies wanting to steal my freedom
Dog bless america

>>6268235
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc_economies#Lagging_growth

I count socialist states as socialists

>>6268235
>Also, do Stalinist states count as Marxist?

Because it is Marxism-Leninism?

>reds getting BTFO

>>6264553
>had no understanding of Freud what so ever
Why do you even bother?

Because people live in the real world, anon, not a made up utopia of good nature and hard work.

>>6268164
Marx never proposed how a society better than a capitalist society would work in Das Kapital, he only describes how capitalism works.

>dfw capitalism will eliminate poverty before people stop discussing marxism

>>6270633
What the fuck is dfw?

>>6270639
>being this new

>>6270633
>implying the poor won't always be with us
heh

>>6270633
>Capitalism
>eliminating poverty

Pick one.

>>6270642
>dfw new

>>6270648
>in socialism you wait for bread in capitalism bread waits for you.jpg

>>6265258
Sorry, but Wikipedia is full of shit.

What the fuck is the difference if the IMF forces privatization and forced agricultural exports in third world countries that leads to mass famine and kills tens of millions of poor people, and Stalin or Mao taking grain from the peasants to pay for industrialization causing shortages that were not reported and caused mass starvation killing millions of people?

The hundreds of millions of deaths that are directly linked to Capitalist economics every DECADE are a direct result of Capitalism and it's Market systems. When cheap drugs are withheld from third world countries because the poor can't afford them, how are the millions of deaths caused by preventable illness not the result of Capitalism? When big Tobacco for decades withheld research on the dangers of Tobacco for the sake of profit, causing hundreds of millions of deaths and still counting, how is that not the fault of Capitalism?

If you want to engage in the useless debate "Deaths caused by Economics" then Capitalism easily wins by a mile, Capitalism kills more in a single decade than Communism did in 80 years.

>>6265380
Correct. Individuality has reached it's limits via the divisibility of the individual into sections of identities.

>>6270648
Capitalism is the economic system that has most benefited the poor. Right now, hundreds of millions of chinese and indians are joining the middle class thanks to capitalism.

>>6272483
The only mass famines in third world countries happened in countries ruled by communists such as Ethiopia.

>>6272571
That is not true at all.
Famine occurs all the time in Africa. 12 million people are affected by famine in Africa today while 630,000 suffer from severe malnutrition in Somalia alone.

Many countries in Africa that have people starving to death by the tens of thousands every year are net-exporters of food. Countries like Malawi had famines that were directly caused by the IMF.

The term "famine" is also politically loaded and is usually only aimed at Socialist countries. Many, many countries suffer from mass famine, but yet, don't get called famines.

Why is a 25:1000 death rate in India not a famine, yet a 25:1000 death rate in Maoist China called the worst famine in history? (while annual death rates in Nationalist china were 49:1000)

This is the absurdity of this whole famine and death count bullshit anyway. It's so tied to bias politics it's absolutely bullshit.

>>6272600
India is pretty much socialist too btw. While the Kuomintang was supported by the Soviet Union when it ruled.

Marxism is unflinchingly eurocentric and essentialist, which makes his capitalist model wildly inaccurate, at least when attempting to realise contemporary global capitalism

>>6272600
I think we can say the lowest common denominator for famine in Africa is Africa

Not economics

There was however, no FUCKING reason for 7,000,000 people to die in Stalin's starvation genocide in the Ukraine

>>6265567
No

>>6267392
I would say he is saying the whole crises theory? Communism woulf be incredibly stable compared to capitalism.

>>6265755
What is imperialism

>>6273238
Actually, the famine was all over Russia, certainly not man-made, and afterwards, Russia never suffered another famine again.

>>6265737
>implying another state offered their citizens more rights than the United States in the late 1700 early 1800's

But yes, believe it or not, they didn't get off the boat with 21 century ideals
Shame on them for not being forward thinking by 200+ years

>The point is that until the 1820s the US was essentially a Tory state run by conservative Whigs.
ok
Fine

Let's say 1820's then
195 years two months

Is that better faggot?

How long did the stability of communism last?
Not even 70 fucking years

>>6273297
How many famines did the US go through that killed 7,000,000 people?

Oh but the USSR only had one?
Well good for them
Clearly the communist system is the superior system

>certainly not man made
I feel like I'm talking to a nazi on /pol/

Was it the incompetence of the collective farms or was it an intentional genocide of Ukrainians?

>>6273313
The US had one major deadly famine too. The invisible hand of the free market won't save you when the crops die. And lack of good central planning itself killed people during the great depression, of course, though right wingers will deny it. If you aren't already predetermined in your conclusions, just think about it and tell me which answer seems more likely.

>>6273313
>Was it the incompetence of the collective farms or was it an intentional genocide of Ukrainians?
Neither. In the 19th century Russia and Ukraine used to have famines every decade. (Due to farmers owning small plots of land and a lack of modern farming technology.)

After the communist revolution there was another routine famine, and then they stopped because the Soviets industrialized farming and got rid of individual land ownership.

Note that the Soviets here were inconsequential; no matter who was in power in Russia, the end result (industrialized farming) would have been the same anyways.

>>6273359
Post link for famine

>>6273369
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath

Do you even read?

>>6273368
>Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.[10]

>Genocide scholar Adam Jones stresses that many of the actions of the Soviet leadership during 1931–32 should be considered genocidal. Not only did the famine kill millions, it took place against "a backdrop of persecution, mass execution, and incarceration clearly aimed at undermining Ukrainians as a national group".[82] Norman Naimark, a historian at Stanford University who specialises in many fields of modern European history,[83] genocide and ethnic cleansing, argues that some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization and targeted campaigns (with over 110,000 shot) against particular ethnic groups, can be looked at as genocidal.[84] In 2006, the Security Service of Ukraine declassified more than 5,000 pages of Holodomor archives.[85] These documents suggest that the Soviet regime singled out Ukraine by not giving it the same humanitarian aid given to regions outside it.[86]

>>6273368
>these lies

Russia in the 1910s had enough food for everyone, if it weren't for the bolsheviks pulling rail strikes all the time because they dominated the unions then Russia could have gotten food to where it needed to go

>>6273377
How many million people died?

>>6273401
No one knows how many "extra" deaths were caused by the disasters at that time, because public health in the US was changing so rapidly. Tuberculosis, previously one of the worst killers, was in the process of being contained before the depression, so it deaths due to it continued to decline through the decade. In general, specific reliable causes of death were not recorded on large scales. Tuberculosis death rates are better known because they were tracked in special hospitals.

There is a Russian paper that claims the dust bowl and depression were roughly equivalent in lethality to the soviet famine, but of course you can see why many outsiders see that as propaganda. Since the "worst" claim is that it was about the same as the famine in the USSR, we can probably conclude that the actual toll was much less. How much exactly, though, no one can say with certainty.

>>6273442
You have typed a lot with out saying anything

How many million people died due to starvation in the United States?

>>6273450
No one knows. Probably zero people died of "starvation," because they would have already died of malnutrition long before that. It seems likely that many fewer people died in the US during those events than during the famine in the former USSR that we are discussing.

I'm repeating myself because I'm nor sure what else I can possibly say to make you understand these simple facts.

>>6273461
If the US handled the famine so much better than the Soviets then why bring up the great depression to a counter point to Stalin's starvation genocide?

I don't judge an ideology by how it handles the extras and cutouts in its story, I judge it by the heights it is capable of achieving.

romance uber alles.

>>6273396
>Russia in the 1910s had enough food for everyone
There were famines in the 1910s in Russia.

>>6264594
>Freud had good ideas
>ever
Read any first year textbook on psychological science and you will see there is no rational basis for Freud's claims. All that can be disproven has; all that remains is meaningless conjecture.

>>6265053
Worthy post

>>6267263
Exactly. What's wrong with being selfish?

>>6267263
>implying the rising tide hasn't lifted all boats

>>6264582
20th century was one big war between ideologies.
Fascism/Nazism were the first to be defeated.
So was Communism.
The problem is that fascism/nazism was completely eradicated, while communism still has an impact on our society through cultural marxism. It is a virus still stuck in Western civilisation today and it is destroying what we can call European cultures.
Another thing to add is that fascism/nazism would never cease to exist if it wasn't for communism.
If I had a time machine and the possibility to murder one historically important person, it would be Karl Marx. Fuck Marx and all those useful idiots (look up the term) believing in communism.

>>6264594
>Marx's basic politics were advocated hundreds of years earlier by Julius Caesar and any other despot who championed populism
Idk what you have smoked man, but where the fuck did you get that idea from? Caesar created what you can call similar to a fascist regime you fucking idiot. Caesar stood for the complete opposite of Marx.

>>6265053
>We need to unite, demand publically funded elections, abolish lobbying and the gerrymandering of congressional and senatorial districts, and an amendment to the Constitution outlining and protecting the rights of labor
I agree on this, but I believe the capitalist system still has great potential once you remove all corruption. Greediness will exist as long as humans exist and it has had impacts on all societies, including those who follow capitalism. That's why governments must take a moral high ground and impose laws that prevents corruption, but today's political system causes pretty much corrupted people to come to power.
What the US need is someone being their equivalence of Caesar who can restore their system.

>>6273485
Maybe the famine wasn't as bad in the central US as it was in Russia and the Ukraine.

I personally think Stalin probably did engage in genocides. But I think it's silly to pretend that stalinism was the only cause of famine and that western nations never experienced severe hardship.

>>6272600
>Famine occurs all the time in Africa. 12 million people are affected by famine in Africa today while 630,000 suffer from severe malnutrition in Somalia alone.
That's called niggers, not capitalism.

>>6273359
>The invisible hand of the free market won't save you when the crops die.
Actually it will, due to the possible imports and most likely surpluses caused by the capitalist system that developed technology that prevents famines. That could always be majority of Europe and North America though and not the capitalist system, but most likely a combination of both.

>>6264451
>Is it because the bourgeoisie control the education system?
Yes comrade. And not only that. The culture industry, the means of production, the discourses and myths.

>>6273603
I've read quite a few textbooks on psychology as a science and I don't think it completely disproved everything. Freud had insights, as the previous poster said. The mechanisms he used to explain some of these insights were a bit convoluted, but he still made insights into dreams and how past experiences can manifest traumas and syndromes in people. Today's academia is of course trying to separate itself from old vague notions because it wants to legitimize psychology as a science. It also does this by a great stress on neuroscience, psychiatry, and cognitive/behaviorist methods of therapy. These things are popular because they're easy to plot down and are interpreted by companies and people as cheap and effective. The problem is they sometimes don't reach the root of the problem and treat symptoms rather than illnesses. There are still vague and fuzzy parts of psychology or parts that maybe should be accepted as not having a firm grounding in empirical science (there are few studies and degrees of confidence). There's still things to learn and room to grow. Freudian insights have not been completely "disproven" just as more frontier beliefs have not been completely "proven." Modern science will often be blind to its own shortcomings. Obviously this is just the nature of things. But don't be so arrogant to think everything is explained. The more you study something the more you learn how shaky the foundation is. Lastly, just referring to a textbook is the ultimate appeal to authority.

>>6265183
>Ignore God
Because capitalism is so pious and stewardly to God's creation and His people.

>>6274559
Friendly reminder that no one can, at the same time, be a true Christian and a true socialist

Scientism, and Historical Materialism, are an ideology in itself.

>social
>science
AHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAA

>>6274585
Christ was a communalist. Socialism is a communal philosophy.

Capitalism as an alternative is particularly unchristian because it is a hierarchical social order in which capital commutes agency. Christ established that only God can judge man. Just as he taught that no king (or Stalinist dictator) can stand above any man other than Christ the king of kings, his teachings tell us that no capitalist can stand above his workers.

>>6275807
How does some businessmen owning his owning his personal means of production that he allows someone else to use for a wage put him above his worker on a moral level?

Quite frankly I don't see how the two relate

I do how ever see the horrible morality of socialistic societies, democratic socialist or otherwise, national or international, which is completely incompatible with the morals laid out by Jesus Christ

>>6273313
Using the same statistical analysis used on the USSR, around 7 million went missing during the Great Depression:

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/19-05-2008/105255-famine-0/