Marx believed that in a capitalist system the wealthy exploited the poor. Yes – I agree with that.
Marx believed that people should be equal. He wanted to do away with class, racism, sexism and poverty. Yes – I like that.
Marx envisaged a society that was fair and where everyone worked for the common good. Yes – I like that too.
Marx wanted to do away with religion. Well I regard religion as a superstition that does more harm than good but I don’t think I’d ban it.
Marx wanted production to be owned by the state so everyone worked, everyone received free education, healthcare. That all profits went to the people. I like that too. I don’t like the wealthy creaming off a large share of the profits for themselves. I want more equality and fairness. I think the state can produce better services, more cheaply.
To define Marxism in simple terms, it’s a political and economic theory where a society has no classes. Every person within the society works for a common good, and class struggle is theoretically gone.
Marxism sees capitalism as contradictory and exploitative in its focus on the individual and claims that class struggle will ultimately overthrow the capitalist society and create a Communist Society, where production is focused on the collective good.
The problems that arise with Marxism are difficult to resolve:
It tends to remove incentive and so people become lazy and the economy suffers. I certainly wouldn’t want that. There must be a way of incentivizing without creating gross inequality.
It tends to get taken over by a new elite who create a totalitarian control (rather defeating the initial aims) resulting in tyranny. That is a nightmare. Surely there is a way of creating a system where that does not happen?
Well, at the final count, I’m a socialist, not a Marxist. I believe in a fairer society but not a communist society.
What do you think?
Everything sounds good (even capitalism) when read with the most pure distillation of the definition possible. It’s in practive that humans have a tendency to just make it a smidge off center and blow it all to ….. up 🤭
Yes – we do that consistently. Right now I’d settle for a system that provides some greater degree of fairness. I’m just glad Trump has gone. I wish we could get rid of Johnson!
Paraphrase: you never thought you’d hear Donald Trump with a British accent, didjo?
[Tommy Makim performing a Bob Dylan cover at Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert im MSG]
Yo.
Opher, what do you mean by “fairness?” And what do you mean by “equality?”
I addressed these questions in an article in my early days on WriterBeat, but you probably didn’t pick it up back then. Here it is on my own blog: http://www.honestcommonsense.co.uk/2017/10/on-equality.html.
I liked that Neil – though you are too harsh on the left!!
Well, maybe that’s because the left have been harsh towards me (but then, so have the right). I did quote E. V. Debs, though, and he was pretty far left.
I can understand that.
For myself, I don’t care what someone else believes. I care that we have a good foundation, as the U.S. Constitution supporting individual freedoms with responsibility, and hope the government is as small as possible so “We the People” make our own decision within the framework of law that protects our Constitutional freedoms. No matter what happens in life, no system will be perfect if “We the People” aren’t responsible in our own lives. Prayers.