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I'm no propaganda expert but I think you're comparing apples (teaching about an ideology that a German living in Russia came up with a century ago) to oranges (

by aaaxyz 6y ago

I'm no propaganda expert but I think you're comparing apples (teaching about an ideology that a German living in Russia came up with a century ago) to oranges (receiving money from the current Russian state to push the stories they provide you)

rayiner 6y ago
They’re not teaching “about Marxism.” They’re repeating lies that Marx came up with to explain away the undeniable prosperity of western capitalist countries. That should concern everyone a lot more than some fake news articles funded by Russia.
- mercer 6y ago
  What lies? I'm definitely biased but I've come to respect your comments and would honestly like to hear (or be directed to) more about this whole 1619-project and its veracity.
  - nyolfen 6y ago
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians... > The letter refers to “matters of verifiable fact” that “cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing’” and says the project reflected “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” Wilentz and his fellow signatories didn’t just dispute the Times Magazine’s interpretation of past events, but demanded corrections.
  - eadmund 6y ago
    Here's an article from one of the project's own fact checkers: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje... And here is a letter signed by numerous historians, the NYT response and a counter-response: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I think the 1619 project makes some really important points, so please don’t misconstrue this as a broadside attack on the publication. But the article on capitalism was a hit piece motivated mainly by the author’s (a guy named Ed Baptist) own political views: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-tells-a-false-story-about-capitalism-too-11588956387 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-tells-a-false-.... The article tries to stain American capitalism by claiming that it originated in plantation slavery and provided the capital that made America rich. The article rests on a superficial and fallacious parallelism that tries to equate slave owners lashing slaves to work harder with capitalists pursing ever increasing efficiency. And the author, being a sociologist and not an economist, commits massive math errors, overstating the economic significance of slavery by a magnitude: https://www.thecollegefix.com/cornell-scholar-cited-in-nyts-1619-series-charged-with-fabricating-quotes-evidence; https://www.thecollegefix.com/cornell-scholar-cited-in-nyts-... https://www.aier.org/article/the-statistical-errors-of-the-reparations-agenda/ https://www.aier.org/article/the-statistical-errors-of-the-r... > Coates’s numbers come from Cornell University historian Ed Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told. In a key passage in the book, Baptist purports to add up the total value of economic activity that derived from cotton production, which at $77 million made up about 5 percent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 1836. Baptist then committed a fundamental accounting error. He proceeded to double and even triple count intermediate transactions involved in cotton production — things like land purchases for plantations, tools used for cotton production, transportation, insurance, and credit instruments used in each. Eventually that $77 million became $600 million in Baptist’s accounting, or almost half of the entire antebellum economy of the United States. See also: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/1619-project-new-york-times-king-cotton-thesis/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/1619-project-new-york... In fact, slavery kept the south poor (as economic theory would predict—you can’t make a society richer by enslaving labor; that makes the society poorer even if it enriches a minority of slave owners). Productivity and ultimately industrialization took off dramatically in the south after slavery was ended: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html
    - zaroth 6y ago
      This seems to dovetail with a growing ideology that American exceptionalism is a lie, that American history is a stain, and that America itself is racist. I’m not sure if it begins or end with the burning of books and tearing down of historical statues (Confederates and Abolitionists alike). I guess it’s true that history is written by the victors. I guess it’s not so clear who the victors were and if they will remain so. It’s strange for me, having been brought up on American idealism, and the power of freedom (of speech), democracy, that whole Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness thing. This civil-warish thing has seemed to have escalated quite dramatically however quite recently and it’s hard not to see TFA within that context based on anti-BLM articles that ZH has been publishing.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  You know who wrote a book about Marxism? Thomas Sowell, that's who. I always wondered what ate his brain later on.
mike_ivanov 6y ago
"a German living in Russia" I'm afraid you've lost a "P" there. Prussia, not Russia. Different places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia
vl 6y ago
FYI, Karl Marx never livid in Russia (he preferred London) and was dead a century ago.

by aaaxyz 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

They’re not teaching “about Marxism.” They’re repeating lies that Marx came up with to explain away the undeniable prosperity of western capitalist countries. That should concern everyone a lot more than some fake news articles funded by Russia.

mercer 6y ago
What lies? I'm definitely biased but I've come to respect your comments and would honestly like to hear (or be directed to) more about this whole 1619-project and its veracity.
- nyolfen 6y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians... > The letter refers to “matters of verifiable fact” that “cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing’” and says the project reflected “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” Wilentz and his fellow signatories didn’t just dispute the Times Magazine’s interpretation of past events, but demanded corrections.
- eadmund 6y ago
  Here's an article from one of the project's own fact checkers: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje... And here is a letter signed by numerous historians, the NYT response and a counter-response: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140
- rayiner 6y ago
  I think the 1619 project makes some really important points, so please don’t misconstrue this as a broadside attack on the publication. But the article on capitalism was a hit piece motivated mainly by the author’s (a guy named Ed Baptist) own political views: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-tells-a-false-story-about-capitalism-too-11588956387 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-tells-a-false-.... The article tries to stain American capitalism by claiming that it originated in plantation slavery and provided the capital that made America rich. The article rests on a superficial and fallacious parallelism that tries to equate slave owners lashing slaves to work harder with capitalists pursing ever increasing efficiency. And the author, being a sociologist and not an economist, commits massive math errors, overstating the economic significance of slavery by a magnitude: https://www.thecollegefix.com/cornell-scholar-cited-in-nyts-1619-series-charged-with-fabricating-quotes-evidence; https://www.thecollegefix.com/cornell-scholar-cited-in-nyts-... https://www.aier.org/article/the-statistical-errors-of-the-reparations-agenda/ https://www.aier.org/article/the-statistical-errors-of-the-r... > Coates’s numbers come from Cornell University historian Ed Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told. In a key passage in the book, Baptist purports to add up the total value of economic activity that derived from cotton production, which at $77 million made up about 5 percent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 1836. Baptist then committed a fundamental accounting error. He proceeded to double and even triple count intermediate transactions involved in cotton production — things like land purchases for plantations, tools used for cotton production, transportation, insurance, and credit instruments used in each. Eventually that $77 million became $600 million in Baptist’s accounting, or almost half of the entire antebellum economy of the United States. See also: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/1619-project-new-york-times-king-cotton-thesis/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/1619-project-new-york... In fact, slavery kept the south poor (as economic theory would predict—you can’t make a society richer by enslaving labor; that makes the society poorer even if it enriches a minority of slave owners). Productivity and ultimately industrialization took off dramatically in the south after slavery was ended: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html
  - zaroth 6y ago
    This seems to dovetail with a growing ideology that American exceptionalism is a lie, that American history is a stain, and that America itself is racist. I’m not sure if it begins or end with the burning of books and tearing down of historical statues (Confederates and Abolitionists alike). I guess it’s true that history is written by the victors. I guess it’s not so clear who the victors were and if they will remain so. It’s strange for me, having been brought up on American idealism, and the power of freedom (of speech), democracy, that whole Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness thing. This civil-warish thing has seemed to have escalated quite dramatically however quite recently and it’s hard not to see TFA within that context based on anti-BLM articles that ZH has been publishing.
perl4ever 6y ago
You know who wrote a book about Marxism? Thomas Sowell, that's who. I always wondered what ate his brain later on.

mike_ivanov 6y ago

"a German living in Russia" I'm afraid you've lost a "P" there. Prussia, not Russia. Different places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia

vl 6y ago

FYI, Karl Marx never livid in Russia (he preferred London) and was dead a century ago.