4460

I think this entire paragraph is wrong, most particularly the bolded part. I would be happy to compile a list of well-known economists who don’t summarize Marx by saying “well, we all agree he was wrong,” but I doubt that will have any effect on the conversation, so I’ll pass.

4461

Ok, I think that we have a thread specifically for beating the dead seal that is Marxism, so we can probably move this discussion over there.

4462

It’s interesting how people, presented with the choice between carrying the banner of

  1. european-style social democracy (which is, indeed, derived in part from Marxist thought)
  2. A discredited ideology that has never succeeded and typically leads to immense suffering

Choose (2), presumably because its

  1. edgier
  2. provides a better outlet for their anger
  3. excuses them from ever having to think about real problems or indeed engage with reality
  4. allows them to feel ideologically superior to everyone else.
  5. gets lots of likes on twittodon.
4463

The most interesting thing is that someone can make the rather mundane, obviously true statement that Marx had a lot of insightful, interesting and correct things to say about economics and the nature of economic power, and there will still be some knobs who respond with the equivalent of oh yeah how about Pol Pot you monster?

I wonder, which are the things that Matt quotes from Marx that all economists agree are wrong, and what part of the quote or Matt’s subsequent words constitute advocacy for a regime like the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China? Or are we just making up that part so we can throw rocks at him?

4464

And when those insightful, interesting and correct things are put into practice in the real world, what happens?

For your second question, here is Marx:

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

4465

I think you misunderstood the question, or I misunderstand the answer. I’ll repeat it, with emphasis added:

4466

Defending Marx is always such a weird hill for folks to choose to die on.

4467

As long as we both agree that Marx justifies those types of regimes, I think we are good!

4468

Well, perhaps we can agree that you’re committing the sort of knobbish error I was complaining about, and leave it at that.

4469

It’s only knobbish when you want to ignore the impact of theory being put into practice!

Defending Marx is always such a weird hill for folks to choose to die on.

It’s like defending absolute monarchy after WW1. Communist on the left are like the integralists and neo-monarchists of the right.

4470
4471

It’s like Pavlov rang a bell in here.

4473

Rang a bell-end is more like it.

4474

We should just apply the Polder Model (for those interested in some different Economic Models).

4475

Again, guys, stop dying on the Misconstrued Analogy Hill. Nobody thinks a quote about the power between capital and the workers immediately means we need to start shooting people who wear glasses. It’s like saying i like Stoicism’s ideas of preferred indifferents, therefore, i believe that reason lives in the chest and not in the brain, or that i have to believe in a demiurge. I think at this length and distance people are smart enough here to take the good parts out of old theories without having to “fly the banner” and mindlessly accept every part of the theory unconditionally, without any possible analysis or revision possible after 150 years and plenty of examples of the theory in action.

Or, to put it another way, if you think Marx is mmmmm Satan!, then the welfare states of Scandinavia are fundamentally demonic and need to be toppled, just as Red Russia and Red China were, since it’s impossible to have socialistic ideas without some precursor idea percolating in from Marx.

4476

Look, if you even mention Marx in any way it means you are a marxism defending communist and such marxism must be immediately and strongly renounced. If someone else points out that the reaction and anti-marxist tirade had zero to do with the original point being made, they too are clearly a marxist and must be denounced for their full throated support of all the evils of marxism.

4477

So, wait, what you’re saying is…you’re a Marxist??

4478

We are all Marxists now.

4479

Contributing to the deaths of tens of millions of people tends to make people pretty sensitive.

To look at Marxism through a purely theoretically perspective is like looking at national socialism without discussing the Nazis.

4480