Re: karl marx and the communist manifesto

"Anonymous" <gue...@guest.net> writes:

> Dewight Fry wrote in message <6t5...@ac.ce.13.16.cabalnet.net>...
>
> >I found your pic to be a real yawner.  Who gives a crap about Marx and
> >his assinine political theories?  Communism sucks, d00d!
>
> I'm not a Marxist - I just appreciate good art (which this quite
> obviously is).

Anyway an interesting picture and technique.


> You're forgetting what Communism is all about - the basic principle was
> that all mankind was created equal, so everyone should have equal
> wealth and property.

Which runs us into the problem that people are not created equal (ever
compared an genius and an retard?) and also people work different
amounts (hardworking vs lazy). So they neither can achieve by themselves,
nor do deserve equal wealth or property.


> The problem with Communism was the greed of certain people.

It that were the only problem, it would have worked. Try some of the
real problems that killed it of:


1. Lenin deliberately refused to follow the rules layed out by Marx,
because he was not prepared to wait (until after his lifetime).

Marx _clearly_ states, that for communism to work the way he envisioned
it, one _first_ must have an capitalist system that has run its course.
"run its course" in Marxian terms means, when it has grown so far that
no further growth is possible (no one wants to buy more), so competition
only results in pricecutting (and less pay, so less buying -> permanent
recession) and mergers that eliminate competition (so only monopolist,
then price gouging).

One could argue, that the west has reached that state in the last 30
years. But Lenin tried to step directly from an agrarian feudal
society of scarcity to communism. Marx would have predicted Lenins
faillure.


2. Forgetting or not knowing the importance of motivation.

Even when production exceeds demand, and so work time drops, there is
still need for some to go working. They need an reason to spend their
time this way, instead of doing nothing, like all the rest of the
people.

Today we know from modern biology, that the only known reliable
motivator is to reward people with something they would have not be
able to get without the work. That seems to be either more pay (and
so more wealth, end of the "equal wealth" bit) or political power to
push others around (but that gives political power fights,
suppression, suffering).

Result of this was the "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
Problem. Too little being produced, salaries which you can't buy stoff
with, because the shelves are empty. Demotivation. Evenless stuff on
the shelves. Gave an vicious circle that killed the economy.


3. Not knowing about information flow problems

The actual Sovietunion was based on central planning. This may
strictly not be Marx, but annother Lenin missdesign.

Unfortunately it doesn't work either. Planning is never precise enough.
So one needs to watch the outcome and correct the plans (no plan is
even worse, but ridgid plans are also bad). The Soviet 5 year plans
were definitely not flexible enough.

Even worse, an central system makes such feedback unreliable. Then add
above part about political power and all the planning positions get
quickly filled with those that want to reward themselves (and because
stuff is scarse they have an desire to get more than average). Then
come the political battles. And that kills as ist first victim any
form of reliable information flow, so the system loses its ability to
correct itsself.


> Communism was good on paper, but in practise it never worked.

It was an not even a particularly good target. And it was badly
implemented. And it could not work, so far we know today. Some of
this stuff Marx simply could not have known (motivational biology
and information frow analysis).


> As I said, I'm not a Marxist (I prefer the semi-democratic state that I
> live in).  But I like the art form.

Today we know that preventing poverty (through todays social security)
and all its negative side effects is about the best that is attainable.
Although the highly bureaucratic implementations in use today are also
unnecessarily complex and as result of this unreliable.

And the costcutters are trying their best do destroy even this.


--
Neil Franklin, nei...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Programmer, Archer, Blacksmith
- hardware runs the world, software controls the hardware
  code generates the software, have you coded today?