It’s been almost a century and a half since Karl Marx’s death, and decades since the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. In the still nominally…View Post
“Key institutions and features—such as democracy, the rule of law and civil and interstate peace—can only emerge under capitalism and are always absent from pre-capitalist societies. This is because, under capitalism, the ruling class has no need to resort to violence to amass money, while, in a feudal society, the rulers maintain their power and wealth through unequal laws, aristocratic privileges and constant territorial incursions. Capitalist elites don’t need to do this: they can let the impersonal forces of the market do the work for them.”
Thanks for that quote, which is so wrong in so many levels and ahistorical it would take hours to go through every single misdirection it tries to do. In addition the write up you do is well done :)
That said the linked article reads like black propaganda
They also are going full "crab-bucket" mode, Thatcher and Ayn Rand would be proud:
Marx also underestimated the problem of free riding among the working class and instead wrongly attributed working-class division and passivity to false consciousness (a semi-conspiratorial, quasi-Freudian notion). In fact, as Mancur Olson has argued in The Logic of Collective Action, under normal circumstances, workers have no compelling reason to take part in a revolution. The chances of an individual worker tilting the scales are extremely small. The revolution will succeed or fail regardless of what she, personally, decides to do. So, she’s better off simply staying on the sidelines and not risking getting arrested or killed. If the revolution succeeds, she’ll still enjoy its benefits, if any—say, expanded democratic rights or the abolition of exploitation—even if she didn’t participate in it
Though didn't we see from the evil Soviet Union that people who didn't partake in the revolution did better, but also worse after? Revolution is not a single turn prisoner dilemma, it is a no prisoner multi stage game, which means that people are aware of what you did.
However from organizing we know that "The Logic of Collective Action" isn't that one worker doesn't tip the scales, it is that workers are path diagrams, every worker influences the conditions and some will create non linear effects, especially after a tipping point. This means that during collective action and revolution the impact of single people can be exceptional. The econ "we linearize everything" and look at things as static dogma once again ruined the point the author (and his source) could've made.
Assuming most workers are rational, one would expect large-scale revolutionary collective action to be an uncommon phenomenon: no “false consciousness” is necessary to explain this.
Or the author is just and not as rational and intelligent as he thinks. "Rational" in the sense he uses is also the propaganda term for econ bros who didn't take the time to think stuff through a tenth as much as did.
It gets even worse:
But supply and demand are themselves directly determined by people’s personal wants and preferences, as expressed through their purchasing decisions
Yeah, critiquing Marx with a smudged electron microscope and using econ 101 theory blindfolded and gagged.
I would like to add another point. The author writes about "empirical evidence" which shows that it is wrong to say that the "rate of profit falls" and what do they do? They cite the same old graphs about how in the US and a selection of imperial markets the profit rate didn't fall as hard and that it does fluctuate around a bit. Nothing which disproves the rate of profits to fall.
That is a topic I am quite interested in and people then turn around and act as if (a) it is enough to look into your own back yard and claim that it doesn't happen and (b) that companies aren't explicitly trying to deal with that problem. That is one of the reasons Thiel, Musk, Bezos, and others try to get monopolies or quasi-monopolies in their markets and why companies (market failure in econ 400 and 300) try to create oligopoles and not go into price battles (gas stations and raffineries come to mind) rather often.
IP rights are also a way to enforce a longer time of reaping profits till others are allowed to use the advancements - even if they did come up with it on their own. In addition IP rights are market entry barriers which reduce the competitiveness in a market from a non-Marxist outlook, too.
It's beside the point but it blows me away that people blame WW1 so unilaterally on Germany still.
Edit: were the Crusades not motivated by levels of fealty and the geopolitical desires of the ruling class? What "motivated" the soldiers seems to be besides the point, and pinning it on religion as though religion unilateraterally motivates anything seems even more silly.
Well, I guess the Children's Crusade, but I mean the ones that weren't exclusively child abuse.
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Damn lol its so fucking easy writing anti-marxist rants to get published online, every single quote is babys first marx refutation.
the actual content doesn't matter, it's the repetition that convinces people - especially those unwilling to do research.
great writeup, thanks
“Key institutions and features—such as democracy, the rule of law and civil and interstate peace—can only emerge under capitalism and are always absent from pre-capitalist societies. This is because, under capitalism, the ruling class has no need to resort to violence to amass money, while, in a feudal society, the rulers maintain their power and wealth through unequal laws, aristocratic privileges and constant territorial incursions. Capitalist elites don’t need to do this: they can let the impersonal forces of the market do the work for them.”
Thanks for that quote, which is so wrong in so many levels and ahistorical it would take hours to go through every single misdirection it tries to do. In addition the write up you do is well done :)
That said the linked article reads like black propaganda
They also are going full "crab-bucket" mode, Thatcher and Ayn Rand would be proud:
Though didn't we see from the evil Soviet Union that people who didn't partake in the revolution did better, but also worse after? Revolution is not a single turn prisoner dilemma, it is a no prisoner multi stage game, which means that people are aware of what you did.
However from organizing we know that "The Logic of Collective Action" isn't that one worker doesn't tip the scales, it is that workers are path diagrams, every worker influences the conditions and some will create non linear effects, especially after a tipping point. This means that during collective action and revolution the impact of single people can be exceptional. The econ "we linearize everything" and look at things as static dogma once again ruined the point the author (and his source) could've made.
Or the author is just
and not as rational and intelligent as he thinks. "Rational" in the sense he uses is also the propaganda term for econ bros who didn't take the time to think stuff through a tenth as much as 
did.
It gets even worse:
Yeah, critiquing Marx with a smudged electron microscope and using econ 101 theory blindfolded and gagged.
I would like to add another point. The author writes about "empirical evidence" which shows that it is wrong to say that the "rate of profit falls" and what do they do? They cite the same old graphs about how in the US and a selection of imperial markets the profit rate didn't fall as hard and that it does fluctuate around a bit. Nothing which disproves the rate of profits to fall.
That is a topic I am quite interested in and people then turn around and act as if (a) it is enough to look into your own back yard and claim that it doesn't happen and (b) that companies aren't explicitly trying to deal with that problem. That is one of the reasons Thiel, Musk, Bezos, and others try to get monopolies or quasi-monopolies in their markets and why companies (market failure in econ 400 and 300) try to create oligopoles and not go into price battles (gas stations and raffineries come to mind) rather often.
IP rights are also a way to enforce a longer time of reaping profits till others are allowed to use the advancements - even if they did come up with it on their own. In addition IP rights are market entry barriers which reduce the competitiveness in a market from a non-Marxist outlook, too.
It's beside the point but it blows me away that people blame WW1 so unilaterally on Germany still.
Edit: were the Crusades not motivated by levels of fealty and the geopolitical desires of the ruling class? What "motivated" the soldiers seems to be besides the point, and pinning it on religion as though religion unilateraterally motivates anything seems even more silly.
Well, I guess the Children's Crusade, but I mean the ones that weren't exclusively child abuse.
deleted by creator