May 2024
BBC on Karl Marx
Submitted by stevein7 on Mon, 2011-09-12 12:35
This long article is quite a confession from the BBC. Of course some sins are too sordid to confess in public, so there is hardly a full admission of Marx's brilliance, but it goes quite far, even if managing to somehow save the day for markets and capitalism but at the price of an eternity of misery.
There is no argument that there is any communism existing anywhere in the world, perhaps the Chinese joke is too old to retell, and if the author had just mentioned the fact that Marx did give us a choice, socialism or common ruin, he could have easily made the case in favour of common ruin and left Marx's reputation unstained as simply the best.
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Stevein It is an even bigger
Stevein
It is an even bigger confession for John Gray who (when he had a beard in the 1980s) was trotted out as a philosophical anti-Marxist (admittedly against appalling crypto-stalinist marxists like Jerry Cohen). However with the fall of the Soviet Union he expected "democracy" to deliver much more socially and has been moving slowly towards his current "Marx was not so bad after all" position. The bursting of the financial bubble was just the final straw. We are however still in the "groves of academe" here. He does not refer to the key agent of change - the international working class.
I came across the article in
I came across the article in Spanish before I found the English version. The Spanish title was more direct. Karl Marx tenia razon. Karl Marx was right.
Quite odd that the author cannot even consider that the permanent crisis he depicts could give rise to a new revolutionary movement. I suspect there is more money in the 'eternal captalism' market. Looks better on the C.V.
What made me smile was when
What made me smile was when Gray argued that the social base of capitalism is to be found in the middle classes and their way of life. There are none so blind as those who won't see especially when reality hits them in the face. Another article in yesterdays FT by George Magnus highlighted the recognition by certain sections of bourgeosie ideologists that the present capitalist crisis is more than a simple readjustment to their system. I believe what this current spate of questioning signifies is that there are increasing splits within the bourgeoise in how to handle the crisis and it is through these splits that a space will be created which will lead to a resurgance and legitimacy of communist ideas. Of course this isn't to say that the bourgeoisie will simply allow such ideas of working class revolution to spontaneously develop they won't. What it does signify that the ideas associated with the capitalist mode of production which has existed almost unchallenged during the last thirty years is now beginning to unravel.
The ever-optimistic Dave
The ever-optimistic Dave says:"there are increasing splits within the bourgeoise in how to handle the crisis and it is through these splits that a space will be created which will lead to a resurgance and legitimacy of communist ideas."
But I'm all for optimism myself, as pessimism leads nowhere. Great too that capitalism's ideology is starting to unravel. The sooner the better!
Mmmmmmmm, I think the little
Mmmmmmmm, I think the little communist left appears a little deluded to the outside world when it makes absolute statements whereas there are only varying degrees of probability.
IT is extremely unlikely that a volcano will devastate a continent a huge asteroid will hit the earh, we will be visited by an alien race, Christ will return, the ICC will discard decomposition, but never say never,
Inevitability should be approached with caution.
Dialectics teaches us to consider opposing forces, let's not get too optimistic. But perhaps a bit of exaggeration, poetic licence and enthusiasm are required.
I reread the article. It
I reread the article.
It says that most in the UK are better off as a result of capitalism.
Well we communists have always recognised capitalism's dynamism, its productivity and its necessity in human evolution.
But it is now a barrier to the next step of socialism.
It talks of capitalism destroying itself. Well to a degree it does set in motion all the prerequisites for revoution, but it will not simply fade away without a fight.
It talks some rubbish about capitalism destroying the bourgeoisie.
Perhaps it changes the composition of the bourgeoisie, perhaps it creates an ever reduced group of ever richer capitalists, perhaps it forces the intermediate strata to recognise they are much closer to the working class than the elite, perhaps it shatters the illusion of the working class that we are all middle class now, but it does not destroy the capitalist class.
Thinking about it the article
Thinking about it the article is setting out the ''all in it together'' perspective. Now those who own enormous fortunes are buffeted by turbulent swings in the worth of their assets, we are all bewildered survivors cast adrift in the good ship capitalism, each one of us subject to the random vagueries of the markets.
No way!
They've got diamonds and pearls, jets and Ferraris, mansions and tropical islands.
What have we got? A treadmill running on the spot, sweating buckets and going nowhere fast.