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> It makes perfect logical sense. The predictions changed behavior. This is absolute nonsense. That's not what models are nor how they work. Marx makes it pret

> It makes perfect logical sense. The predictions changed behavior. This is absolute nonsense. That's not what models are nor how they work. Marx makes it pretty clear that his theories are the definitive course of History, which obviously isn't the case. > The Communist Manifesto itself includes a list of electoral demands for reforms, that includes things like e.g. free primary education. What it doesn't include is a call for revolution, but a reactive suggestion that if forced by circumstance the working class makes itself the ruling class by means of revolution, then that would in a stroke sweep away the bourgeois state. What are you talking about? The Communist Manifest to explicitly calls for revolutions and radical fracture of societal values through the entire text. Incremental improvements were always used for making certain points about class struggle but was never proposed seriously as a solution. > Marx left the door open for electoral politics already then. Indeed, the Communist Manifesto also expresses his support for the activity of the Chartists in the UK, who aimed to expand suffrage, to the consternation of more hardline revolutionaries who saw it as pointless. They merely talk about Chartists if not for a mere moral support and used as an example that History always leads to class struggles and never as an alternative to the revolution. > Later, one of Marx own most famous works - Critique of the Gotha Programme - does not critique said program by rejecting the idea of electoral policies, but instead critiques and suggests changes to said electoral program set forth by the Social Democratic Workers Party in Germany, a party closely aligned with Marx and Engels, and one of forerunners of the SPD. And incidentally one of the parties that helped scare Bismark into action. The founder of social democracy - Eduard Bernstein - was a personal friend of Marx, and a Marxist himself. Modern social democracy is a very different thing, but from the start it was strongly aligned to communism, with many modern social democratic parties tracing their origin to Marxist organisations. Incidentally, the Erfurt Programme of the SPD, published in 1891, was written by Kautsky, Bebel and Bernstein, all three of whom were outspoken Marxists, though Kautsky and Bebel were much more "orthodox" in their support for the need for revolution. The sharp separation between social-democrats and revolutionary socialists of various shades first started taking shape towards the very end of the century and sped up with a number of social-democratic parties supporting World War I, leading to splits, and further splits after the Bolshevik coup. That separation was not "complete" until the late 1920's with the Stalinisation of Komintern. An idea does carry over all the baggage of their progenitors. X was friend with Y, ok, so what? That's high school gangs politics at this point. > Marx didn't predict that a capitalist economy would immediately collapse if it did not have access to new geographic markets, so this is entirely flawed logic. His prediction is very simple: Companies will eventually need to reduce the cost of labour per unit of value produced to survive, because it will be the easiest remaining way to compete, and this will eventually drive unemployment, and that this will eventually lead to escalating crises. But a pre-requisite is that labour first needs to become the easiest factor to optimise. There are various signs before collapses. Collapses have a series of events and aggravating context that make them possible. What Marx based his predictions on are just not really there or at least at a scale that makes them possible. Remunerations continued to increase and worker productivity has also increased. And no, labor is not always to optimize when technology is taken into account. > There's nothing in Marx' predictions that goes against this. This goes back to the insistence that capitalism is first at threat of crises once reducing the cost of labour becomes the primary competitive lever. I pointed to China, India and Africa explicitly because they still see the easy gains of developing economies, where there are a plethora of ways to drive growth that are easy enough that focusing on reducing total labour costs are not worthwhile. Just like Europe and the US exported low-paid work to India and China, China and India are exporting low paid work to Bangladesh, Vietnam and Africa, and in doing so allowing for salary growth in their own countries. But even within Africa this is happening between countries at different levels of development. The point I was making is explicitly that we have no way of determining whether or not Marx was right about what happens when there are no further places to export competitive pressure until those places have exhausted the easy gains. Basically: Once even sub-Saharan Africa starts seeing GDP growth rates closely track declining population growth numbers is the first point in time when we will actually be able to start making a judgement about whether his prediction that aggregate labour costs will be driven down is true or not, and whether or not that will have the effect of causes crises Were at a minimum many decades away from that, maybe much longer. And he may well be wrong, but we can't tell anytime soon. Again, as new markets fail to appear with the world's there is no real tendencies for that to happen. And also basing the deconstruction and reconstruction of society over an hypothesis is just not prone to good outcomes to say the least.

vidarh 6y ago
> This is absolute nonsense. That's not what models are nor how they work That's exactly how models work - if they are shown to longer match reality, one changes them, one does not insist on ignoring reality. If one does the latter, it's just pointless doctrine. > Marx makes it pretty clear that his theories are the definitive course of History, which obviously isn't the case. Where do you believe he did that? > What are you talking about? The Communist Manifest to explicitly calls for revolutions and radical fracture of societal values through the entire text. >Incremental improvements were always used for making certain points about class struggle but was never proposed seriously as a solution. Chapter 2 is the only place that talks of practical steps, and it ends with talking about revolution. However it also specifically talks of wresting property from the bourgeois "by degree". The closest to a direct call for revolution is this: > If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class You'll note "if" it is "compelled, by the force of circumstances". Which is the justification for why Marx also later argued that the specifics of how the proletariat might gain control would depend on the country, such as e.g. his speech to the IWMA in 1872, whee he said: > "Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics. > > But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. > > You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means." This messaging remained constant in his works for decades. It is undoubtably true that Marx believed that revolution would be forced on the working class most places, because he saw humanity as inherently selfish and expected the bourgeoisie to fight back up to and including by using force. Unsurprising given that is what he saw when workers faced undemocratic, oppressive, authoritarian states all around him. But his continued support for electoral politics throughout his life was a pretty clear demonstration that he certainly did not object to it. > They merely talk about Chartists if not for a mere moral support and used as an example that History always leads to class struggles and never as an alternative to the revolution. Marx expressed support for Chartists in many other contexts too. > An idea does carry over all the baggage of their progenitors. X was friend with Y, ok, so what? That's high school gangs politics at this point. I have pointed out to you that 1) the most prominent social-democratic party of the time was Marxist. 2) that Marx suggested revisions to their programme, not denounced the idea of a reformist program, 3) that the three co-authors of their later program were all Marxists. This quite clearly refutes the claim that Marxists in general were opposed to social democratic ideas at the time. The most watered down modern social democracy is certainly not compatible with Marxism - we can presumably agree on that. But social democracy in general was for a long time near synonymous with communism. It is quite telling you don't offer any counter arguments. > There are various signs before collapses. Collapses have a series of events and aggravating context that make them possible. What Marx based his predictions on are just not really there or at least at a scale that makes them possible. Remunerations continued to increase and worker productivity has also increased. What you're again ignoring - without providing a counter-argument, is that the preconditions for the predicted crises has not yet been met. Given that both Marx and Engels kept "tracking progress" on this point in prefaces for the Communist Manifesto literally for decades without getting close to pronouncing the process complete, and with still dismissing much of the world as too underdeveloped gives a good indication of their views on what would be required. Maybe his predictions will turn out to be wrong when they have been met, but until they are we have no way to tell. You seem to think I'm hoping he's right. I'm not - it'd be a nightmare. Not because of the end-state, but because if he's right we'll face potentially decades of upheaval. If growth continues and people get wealthier without it, then fantastic. I'm saying that as someone who do believe in substantial redistribution, and in the dismantling of the state. But I'd much rather that happened gradually and without the chaos. At the same time it would be blatantly intellectually dishonest of me to pretend we have proof he was wrong about this. > Again, as new markets fail to appear with the world's there is no real tendencies for that to happen. There are still plenty of easy wins left, so I find it fascinating that you think you know the outcome of a situation that has never happened. > And also basing the deconstruction and reconstruction of society over an hypothesis is just not prone to good outcomes to say the least. Whether or not it is desirable is irrelevant to the question about whether or not his prediction that it will happen are correct.

vidarh 6y ago

> This is absolute nonsense. That's not what models are nor how they work That's exactly how models work - if they are shown to longer match reality, one changes them, one does not insist on ignoring reality. If one does the latter, it's just pointless doctrine. > Marx makes it pretty clear that his theories are the definitive course of History, which obviously isn't the case. Where do you believe he did that? > What are you talking about? The Communist Manifest to explicitly calls for revolutions and radical fracture of societal values through the entire text. >Incremental improvements were always used for making certain points about class struggle but was never proposed seriously as a solution. Chapter 2 is the only place that talks of practical steps, and it ends with talking about revolution. However it also specifically talks of wresting property from the bourgeois "by degree". The closest to a direct call for revolution is this: > If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class You'll note "if" it is "compelled, by the force of circumstances". Which is the justification for why Marx also later argued that the specifics of how the proletariat might gain control would depend on the country, such as e.g. his speech to the IWMA in 1872, whee he said: > "Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics. > > But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. > > You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means." This messaging remained constant in his works for decades. It is undoubtably true that Marx believed that revolution would be forced on the working class most places, because he saw humanity as inherently selfish and expected the bourgeoisie to fight back up to and including by using force. Unsurprising given that is what he saw when workers faced undemocratic, oppressive, authoritarian states all around him. But his continued support for electoral politics throughout his life was a pretty clear demonstration that he certainly did not object to it. > They merely talk about Chartists if not for a mere moral support and used as an example that History always leads to class struggles and never as an alternative to the revolution. Marx expressed support for Chartists in many other contexts too. > An idea does carry over all the baggage of their progenitors. X was friend with Y, ok, so what? That's high school gangs politics at this point. I have pointed out to you that 1) the most prominent social-democratic party of the time was Marxist. 2) that Marx suggested revisions to their programme, not denounced the idea of a reformist program, 3) that the three co-authors of their later program were all Marxists. This quite clearly refutes the claim that Marxists in general were opposed to social democratic ideas at the time. The most watered down modern social democracy is certainly not compatible with Marxism - we can presumably agree on that. But social democracy in general was for a long time near synonymous with communism. It is quite telling you don't offer any counter arguments. > There are various signs before collapses. Collapses have a series of events and aggravating context that make them possible. What Marx based his predictions on are just not really there or at least at a scale that makes them possible. Remunerations continued to increase and worker productivity has also increased. What you're again ignoring - without providing a counter-argument, is that the preconditions for the predicted crises has not yet been met. Given that both Marx and Engels kept "tracking progress" on this point in prefaces for the Communist Manifesto literally for decades without getting close to pronouncing the process complete, and with still dismissing much of the world as too underdeveloped gives a good indication of their views on what would be required. Maybe his predictions will turn out to be wrong when they have been met, but until they are we have no way to tell. You seem to think I'm hoping he's right. I'm not - it'd be a nightmare. Not because of the end-state, but because if he's right we'll face potentially decades of upheaval. If growth continues and people get wealthier without it, then fantastic. I'm saying that as someone who do believe in substantial redistribution, and in the dismantling of the state. But I'd much rather that happened gradually and without the chaos. At the same time it would be blatantly intellectually dishonest of me to pretend we have proof he was wrong about this. > Again, as new markets fail to appear with the world's there is no real tendencies for that to happen. There are still plenty of easy wins left, so I find it fascinating that you think you know the outcome of a situation that has never happened. > And also basing the deconstruction and reconstruction of society over an hypothesis is just not prone to good outcomes to say the least. Whether or not it is desirable is irrelevant to the question about whether or not his prediction that it will happen are correct.