Socialism

[Engels]

Under who was the Cheka instituted? lenin. Lets not have this nonsense that Stalinsim was somehow a pathological change. It was the inevitable result of Lenin Trotsky and the rest ot the murderous self aggrandising fanatics who overthrew a nascent democracy in 1917.

Socialism is a malignancy which in its various forms has murdered more people than any creed in the 20th century.

Why were most of the leaders of the bolshevik revolution killed or jailed? Why was Trotsky hunted around the world and eventually killed by Stalin's agents? Why did Stalin feel the need to falsify the history of his role, trotsky's role in the period 1903 - 1917? Surely if your thesis is correct, none of this would have happened, they were all pursuing the same ends according to you.

Why did Trotsky spend most of this final 15/16 years polemicising against the bureacracy in Russia if he was one in the same one. He actually stated in "revolution betrayed" that the Soviet Union would collapse because of the lack of workers democracy and the role of the bureaucratic elite who ruled among other reasons.

[Engels]

There were more people protesting today against the Love Ulster parade than there probably are SP and SWP active members put together in Ireland.

It just goes to show how marginalised you are.

Thats inaccurate but any way, what's your Point???????????

You seem quite content (judging by your posts) to remain very politically confused but also to sit on the sidelines of politics and hurl criticism at various political parties.

[The Conservative Dubliner]

There's WBS and that bearded idiot Engels again.

We've already covered all your socialist nonsense a couple of months ago and you have the brass neck to spin all the same bull************************ again.

Read von Mises - he predicted the downfall of socialist economies long before your fathers were even born, you pimple-faced armchair philosophers. You and your stinking business-destroying unions.

[The Conservative Dubliner]

Why did Trotsky spend most of this final 15/16 years polemicising against the bureacracy in Russia if he was one in the same one. He actually stated in "revolution betrayed" that the Soviet Union would collapse because of the lack of workers democracy and the role of the bureaucratic elite who ruled among other reasons.

Of course bureaucratic elite ruled. WTF did you fools expect to happen once everything is planned centrally and there are no political options to choose from or elections to remove the elite from power??

And you think workers democracy would help? Well, my ill-informed friend we had workers democracy in socialist Yugoslavia and it didn’t work (surprise!!). And guess why – given power workers will vote for more perks and less work. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

[Worldbystorm]

There's WBS and that bearded idiot Engels again.

We've already covered all your socialist nonsense a couple of months ago and you have the brass neck to spin all the same ******** again.

Read von Mises - he predicted the downfall of socialist economies long before your fathers were even born, you pimple-faced armchair philosophers. You and your stinking business-destroying unions.

My, my. Something bugging you - want to talk about it?

My father was born in 1930 so really not that long before then was it? Nor is it widely considered that von Mises is the last word in critiques of 'socialist economies' unless you're falling into the same trap as some Marxists who think that their theoretical models are applicable across all subsequent historical epochs despite widely differing circumstances. As for my face, sadly lacking in pimples since the late 1970s.

[Engels]

There's WBS and that bearded idiot Engels again.

We've already covered all your socialist nonsense a couple of months ago and you have the brass neck to spin all the same ******** again.

Read von Mises - he predicted the downfall of socialist economies long before your fathers were even born, you pimple-faced armchair philosophers. You and your stinking business-destroying unions.

Welcome back!

As long as your beloved system is incapable of solving the economic problems facing people you will keep coming up against socialist ideas.

I know from your previous posts that you picked up a few pointers from Tito about dealing with opponents but we live in a "democracy" and I can raise these points. BTW Yougoslavia was never socialist - you, like on most things are misinformed

[Worldbystorm]

Welcome back!

Hmmm...you're a lot more charitable than I, Engels.

[Engels]

Welcome back!

Hmmm...you're a lot more charitable than I, Engels.

Mere Sarcasm! Never agreed with those who say it the lowest form of wit, I enjoy it immensely!

[Worldbystorm]

Well it's a vast improvement on the rather dour humourlessness of TCD these days.

But as I've noted already s/he's already showing signs of incipient Marxism (a belief in the necessity of a revolutionary change in regard to the riots yesterday and his/her clear belief in a dialectical and materialistic approach to history and economic development) so we must be doing something right! :wink:

[popper]

That's the problem. Marx's predictions are not falsifiable and therefore are not scientific. They therefore share exactly the same status as religious beliefs and prophecies.

Anyone who has read Marx will also know that his predictions of the future development of capitalism were both short-term, ie. he (writing in the 1860s and 70s) expected systemic collapse in the very near future, and that his description of capitalism bore no relationship to the economic system as it exists today. Marx would never have beleived that capitalism could have survived alongisde a social democratic welfare state and naturally he had no conception of future technological developments.

Having said that, Captial I is a brilliant history of captitalism and for that alone he ought to be remembered. However, as a predictor of the future he shares the same niche as HG Wells and Nostradamus.

Predicting the future course of human society is the strongest part of Marx's analysis. The factors I named before like global communication, concentration of capital into just a few companies, etc are coming true almost exactly the way he and Engels outlined.

Back in his day virtually no one believed in the concept of cyclic 'boom and bust' periods in the economy - today's it's largely accepted as fact. He described how communication would one day become truly international, essentially breaking down national borders.

The one thing he may have been wrong about was how long the process of bourgeois revolution would take. In places like Nepal, it is essentially just now happening.

That is not true. There had already been a number of major slumps by the time Marx was writing Capital. Indeed, if you read it you will find that most of it is a description of what has already taken place. It is true that Marx identified it as an endemic feature of the system and one that the system would be unable to overcoem, therefore condemning it to collapse within a relatively short period of time. The 1870s and 80s were also the period when captial did become concentrated in the joint stock companies but far from predicting that this would take place, Marx merely had to observe the process. A century and a quarter later, the system continues to work as well as any economic system might be expected to, and certainly better than the one which Marxists beleived would replace it.