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I think The Grand Scheme is the opiate of the intellectuals, and some regimes are friendlier to such schemes than others. If you have a set of top down rules th

I think The Grand Scheme is the opiate of the intellectuals, and some regimes are friendlier to such schemes than others. If you have a set of top down rules that require your will to be imposed on others, a flatter hierarchy is a bug. A decentralized system like free market capitalism allows many tyrants to flourish, but petty ones in comparison. You want a central authoritarian who can materialize your wishes. Whether that authority is right or left wing is subsidiary. Marxism has just been a convenient vehicle for such schemes, as it has had considerable momentum, and its authoritarianism is somewhat cloaked. The best antidote for this opiate is probably humility: the awareness that maybe, given the details on the ground, you don't have a one-size-fits-all solution that's better than what people chose for themselves. But many intellectuals seem to have unusual resistance to this medicine.

misterbishop 7y ago
It's obvious you don't know anything about Marx because you are contrasting "top down rules" (allegedly communism) to a "decentralized" capitalism. Even a cursory reading of Marx would dispel both mistakes.
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  In Marx's own time, he was one of the main people who split the workers movement between his own ideas (his form of Communism) and the anarchist ideas of Bakunin or of Proudhon. People saw the authoritarian prospects of his work in his own time. They all want the same thing - a world without hierarchy. Though it's a great irony that one method relies on hierarchies to try to achieve a "stateless, classless society" Maybe that term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" was a mistake. Stalin and Mao were proletarians, after all...
  - misterbishop 7y ago
    Even by this ill-informed left-com critique, Marx and Bukunin both share a vision of a stateless, classless society based on free association and a practical end to resource scarcity. Not "top down rules" as the original poster simplistically described. As for "dictatorship", it's easy to find out for yourself that this state of society is massively more democratic than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie we live under in capitalist democracies. In Soviet Russia, the dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. the period immediately after the October revolution, not the Stalinist bureaucracy) was obviously necessary to win the civil war against foreign-backed counter revolutionaries. If the Red army lost the civil war, Russia would have been ruled by the fascist Black Hundreds.
- kortilla 7y ago
  It’s sad how it’s acceptable amongst Marxist fans that a no true Scotsman is a valid response. If all it takes is “a cursory reading”, then you should certainly be able to provide a short summary and enlighten the capitalist slaves.
  - misterbishop 7y ago
    "no true scottsman" is irrelevant at the level of the philosophy of Marx/Engels. Communism is a stateless, classless society where mass productive capacity allows for the maxim "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" can prevail. Such a society has never existed, and the so-called communist governments of the USSR and CCP bear no resemblance to it. If you want to criticize Marx, you have to actually criticize his ideas, not some paper-thin kindergarten response that misunderstands both Marxism and Capitalism. It should be obvious that Capitalism is not a "decentralized" system. It is consolidated in the firm through monopoly, it is consolidated in the state via coercive bodies like the military and the police, and it is consolidated in finance which to a large extent plans the international economy. The Ron Paul idea of competitive free markets has never been real, and capitalists themselves would be the first to destroy it.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      >It is consolidated in the firm through monopoly Monopolies are not a stable state without an interventionist government to keep out new market entrants. > is consolidated in finance which to a large extent plans the international economy This is a senseless statement because “finance” itself is a market of people willing to invest in various instruments. The exchange rate between two floating currencies (i.e. the international economy) is dictated by the supply and demand of those currencies on the open forex market. This is pretty far from “consolidated”.
ardy42 7y ago
> I think The Grand Scheme is the opiate of the intellectuals, and some regimes are friendlier to such schemes than others. If you have a set of top down rules that require your will to be imposed on others, a flatter hierarchy is a bug. A decentralized system like free market capitalism... IMHO, free market capitalism pretty clearly counts as a "Grand Scheme." It's basically a program of totally imposing the market idea on society, to usurp and replace as much of society's other ideas and institutions as possible. IIRC, the market also requires an initial program of coercion to get started, to force workers to participate in the market to avoid starvation and other deprivations.

misterbishop 7y ago

It's obvious you don't know anything about Marx because you are contrasting "top down rules" (allegedly communism) to a "decentralized" capitalism. Even a cursory reading of Marx would dispel both mistakes.

Der_Einzige 7y ago
In Marx's own time, he was one of the main people who split the workers movement between his own ideas (his form of Communism) and the anarchist ideas of Bakunin or of Proudhon. People saw the authoritarian prospects of his work in his own time. They all want the same thing - a world without hierarchy. Though it's a great irony that one method relies on hierarchies to try to achieve a "stateless, classless society" Maybe that term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" was a mistake. Stalin and Mao were proletarians, after all...
- misterbishop 7y ago
  Even by this ill-informed left-com critique, Marx and Bukunin both share a vision of a stateless, classless society based on free association and a practical end to resource scarcity. Not "top down rules" as the original poster simplistically described. As for "dictatorship", it's easy to find out for yourself that this state of society is massively more democratic than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie we live under in capitalist democracies. In Soviet Russia, the dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. the period immediately after the October revolution, not the Stalinist bureaucracy) was obviously necessary to win the civil war against foreign-backed counter revolutionaries. If the Red army lost the civil war, Russia would have been ruled by the fascist Black Hundreds.
kortilla 7y ago
It’s sad how it’s acceptable amongst Marxist fans that a no true Scotsman is a valid response. If all it takes is “a cursory reading”, then you should certainly be able to provide a short summary and enlighten the capitalist slaves.
- misterbishop 7y ago
  "no true scottsman" is irrelevant at the level of the philosophy of Marx/Engels. Communism is a stateless, classless society where mass productive capacity allows for the maxim "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" can prevail. Such a society has never existed, and the so-called communist governments of the USSR and CCP bear no resemblance to it. If you want to criticize Marx, you have to actually criticize his ideas, not some paper-thin kindergarten response that misunderstands both Marxism and Capitalism. It should be obvious that Capitalism is not a "decentralized" system. It is consolidated in the firm through monopoly, it is consolidated in the state via coercive bodies like the military and the police, and it is consolidated in finance which to a large extent plans the international economy. The Ron Paul idea of competitive free markets has never been real, and capitalists themselves would be the first to destroy it.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    >It is consolidated in the firm through monopoly Monopolies are not a stable state without an interventionist government to keep out new market entrants. > is consolidated in finance which to a large extent plans the international economy This is a senseless statement because “finance” itself is a market of people willing to invest in various instruments. The exchange rate between two floating currencies (i.e. the international economy) is dictated by the supply and demand of those currencies on the open forex market. This is pretty far from “consolidated”.

ardy42 7y ago

> I think The Grand Scheme is the opiate of the intellectuals, and some regimes are friendlier to such schemes than others. If you have a set of top down rules that require your will to be imposed on others, a flatter hierarchy is a bug. A decentralized system like free market capitalism... IMHO, free market capitalism pretty clearly counts as a "Grand Scheme." It's basically a program of totally imposing the market idea on society, to usurp and replace as much of society's other ideas and institutions as possible. IIRC, the market also requires an initial program of coercion to get started, to force workers to participate in the market to avoid starvation and other deprivations.