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> ...generally fostered violence and hostility between groups of people that do the best when they work together to create the best world together. You seem to

by vorador 17y ago

> ...generally fostered violence and hostility between groups of people that do the best when they work together to create the best world together. You seem to forget that the nineteenth century was extremely harsh (sorry, I lack a better word) for the working class. There were no regulations on anything - for instance, before a regulation law was passed (around 1860 iirc), flour , could contain things like sweat, cobwebs, and other tasty things. It is also a well known fact that the industrial revolution had an effect on the workers - the average worker lost 20 to 30 cm of height : http://www.victorianweb.org/history/workers2.html http://www.victorianweb.org/history/workers2.html Speaking from the 21st century, it seems easy to dismiss Marx as irrelevant. He wasn't. He just shows from how far we come from. Besides, saying Marx brought the khmers rouges is like saying Nietzsche brought the nazis. (sorry for the faults, by the way, english is not my mother tongue)

lionhearted 17y ago
> You seem to forget that the nineteenth century was extremely harsh (sorry, I lack a better word) for the working class. Life had been harsh for almost all of history for the vast majority of people. During the nineteeth century, the general poverty that had been spread throughout the land congregated into cities for a chance at a better life there. Life was harsh, but not because of manmade oppression so much as the fact that life had always been harsh. With industrialization, quality of life improved dramatically. > It is also a well known fact that the industrial revolution had an effect on the workers - the average worker lost 20 to 30 cm of height From your link: "Their stature low--the average height of four hundred men, measured at different times, and different places, being five feet six inches." That was taller than almost all of Continental Europe at that time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#History_of_human_height http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#History_of_human_h... Height in England currently averages 5'10 for men; over that time, the whole world has gotten taller than England. The industrialized nations heights rose faster than non-Industrial, poverty and malnutrition was lower. To this day, Industrialized places are much more pleasant to live than non-Industrial. For instance, South Koreans born post-Korean War are currently 5 inches taller than North Koreans. They're a lot healthier and happier too. > Speaking from the 21st century, it seems easy to dismiss Marx as irrelevant. He wasn't. Just the opposite. Not irrelevant. Lots of bloodshed happened from his ideas. Everywhere that implemented them had their scientific, economic, and artistic progress completely stunted, along with bloodshed and social control. I'd take this lightly, but it can't be taken lightly. > He just shows from how far we come from. Hopefully, yes. His ideas belong on the same scrap heap that fascism does: A way to rally a crowd over emotionally charged language that doesn't add up in real life. > Besides, saying Marx brought the khmers rouges is like saying Nietzsche brought the nazis. Did you read that Khmer Rouge link? They tried to do a Marxian revolution exactly. They were dogmatic about it, it's scary how bought into they were to orthodox, agricultural, labor-based Marxism, anti-capitalism, anti-bourgeois. They really, truly, deeply bought into Marxism. "...the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (est. 7.1 million people, as of 1975[2]), it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century. The Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate anyone suspected of "involvement in free-market activities". Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments." Check the Khmer Rouge link out thoroughly if you haven't yet - it's the most literal attempt to put Orthodox, pure Marxism into action the world has ever seen.
- vorador 17y ago
  > Everywhere that implemented them had their scientific, economic, and artistic progress completely stunted I think you're dismissing a bit too easily soviet russia. Under communist command, russia rised to the status of superpower. As far as I know, khmers rouges were "reactionary" marxists : for instance they refused western medicine and dubbed peasants as "old men" and city folks as "new men". This is not what marxism is about.
  - catzaa 17y ago
    > Under communist command, russia rised to the status of superpower. The Soviet Union was an energy superpower. They used this to built up their economy (and waste money on arms).
- moo 17y ago
  Clearly the Cambodian and Indochina people went through an awful period. Pol Pot did extreme things as a leader but the alternative of leaving Lon Nol in power who had people starving was not good either. Whether communism or Islamic fundamentalism, anti-colonialism wars are not fun to live through. Here is a perspective I picked up from the Internet. "A Finnish inquiry commission concludes that 1 million or fewer people died in the Pol Pot period. The commission documented that at least several thousand of those were because of direct military battles with Vietnam. Part of the discrepancy in death figures comes from those who fail to account for the decrease in births that inevitably happens when a population is lacking adequate food and fighting a war. These missed births get counted as deaths in population projections that assume the birth rate did not change." "The United States war in Southeast Asia killed 600,000 people in Cambodia according to the Finnish Inquiry Commission. The total U.S.-caused deaths in Indochina run into the millions." "By 1975, an estimated 10 percent of the Kampuchean population -- 600,000 -- had already died as a result of the Vietnam War. Those 600,000 deaths were caused by U.S. efforts to track down Vietnamese communists. According to the Peter Jennings documentary "The Killing Fields", Cambodia specifically absorbed 500,000 tons of U.S. bombs in the early 1970s." "The U.S.-instigated war -- and the bombings in particular -- also caused the creation of 2 million refugees, who flooded the cities. The cities then came to depend on the U.S. food aid to live because of the war and the inefficiency of the right-wing Lon Nol regime." "Hence, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge seized power from Lon Nol in 1975 in the worst possible situation: The people were starving, Kampuchea was the poorest country in the world and one-third of its people were refugees." "Executions and other deaths" "The Boston Globe coverage of Pol Pot's death contained this characterization of the Khmer Rouge: "When the Khmer Rouge marched into the capital on April 17, 1975 to establish their agrarian society, they chased out city dwellers at gunpoint, killed anyone suspected of being an intellectual, forced millions into labor camps, and demanded that children inform on their parents. People were often arrested simply for wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language. Money and private property were abolished, schools and temples were shuttered, and medicine and food became scarce. During a nearly four-year reign, as many as 2 million people died of starvation, execution illness or overwork." "Pol Pot did execute between 75,000 and 150,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Most of those executions took place in the context of war between Vietnam and Cambodia.Vietnam invaded in 1978 and threw the Khmer Rouge out of power.The famous skull-pile pictures from Kampuchea come from a policy especially aimed at the Vietnamese.Serious famine followed again after the final Vietnamese invasion of December 1978, and by the time international aid started it was too late for many. A total of 2 million, or 30 percent of the population, died in the 1970s from the U.S. war, the Pol Pot period and Vietnamese invasions." "The United States aided the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s, because they were enemies of U.S. foes, the Vietnamese, who had invaded and ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979."

by vorador 17y ago

lionhearted 17y ago

> You seem to forget that the nineteenth century was extremely harsh (sorry, I lack a better word) for the working class. Life had been harsh for almost all of history for the vast majority of people. During the nineteeth century, the general poverty that had been spread throughout the land congregated into cities for a chance at a better life there. Life was harsh, but not because of manmade oppression so much as the fact that life had always been harsh. With industrialization, quality of life improved dramatically. > It is also a well known fact that the industrial revolution had an effect on the workers - the average worker lost 20 to 30 cm of height From your link: "Their stature low--the average height of four hundred men, measured at different times, and different places, being five feet six inches." That was taller than almost all of Continental Europe at that time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#History_of_human_height http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#History_of_human_h... Height in England currently averages 5'10 for men; over that time, the whole world has gotten taller than England. The industrialized nations heights rose faster than non-Industrial, poverty and malnutrition was lower. To this day, Industrialized places are much more pleasant to live than non-Industrial. For instance, South Koreans born post-Korean War are currently 5 inches taller than North Koreans. They're a lot healthier and happier too. > Speaking from the 21st century, it seems easy to dismiss Marx as irrelevant. He wasn't. Just the opposite. Not irrelevant. Lots of bloodshed happened from his ideas. Everywhere that implemented them had their scientific, economic, and artistic progress completely stunted, along with bloodshed and social control. I'd take this lightly, but it can't be taken lightly. > He just shows from how far we come from. Hopefully, yes. His ideas belong on the same scrap heap that fascism does: A way to rally a crowd over emotionally charged language that doesn't add up in real life. > Besides, saying Marx brought the khmers rouges is like saying Nietzsche brought the nazis. Did you read that Khmer Rouge link? They tried to do a Marxian revolution exactly. They were dogmatic about it, it's scary how bought into they were to orthodox, agricultural, labor-based Marxism, anti-capitalism, anti-bourgeois. They really, truly, deeply bought into Marxism. "...the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (est. 7.1 million people, as of 1975[2]), it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century. The Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate anyone suspected of "involvement in free-market activities". Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments." Check the Khmer Rouge link out thoroughly if you haven't yet - it's the most literal attempt to put Orthodox, pure Marxism into action the world has ever seen.

vorador 17y ago
> Everywhere that implemented them had their scientific, economic, and artistic progress completely stunted I think you're dismissing a bit too easily soviet russia. Under communist command, russia rised to the status of superpower. As far as I know, khmers rouges were "reactionary" marxists : for instance they refused western medicine and dubbed peasants as "old men" and city folks as "new men". This is not what marxism is about.
- catzaa 17y ago
  > Under communist command, russia rised to the status of superpower. The Soviet Union was an energy superpower. They used this to built up their economy (and waste money on arms).
moo 17y ago
Clearly the Cambodian and Indochina people went through an awful period. Pol Pot did extreme things as a leader but the alternative of leaving Lon Nol in power who had people starving was not good either. Whether communism or Islamic fundamentalism, anti-colonialism wars are not fun to live through. Here is a perspective I picked up from the Internet. "A Finnish inquiry commission concludes that 1 million or fewer people died in the Pol Pot period. The commission documented that at least several thousand of those were because of direct military battles with Vietnam. Part of the discrepancy in death figures comes from those who fail to account for the decrease in births that inevitably happens when a population is lacking adequate food and fighting a war. These missed births get counted as deaths in population projections that assume the birth rate did not change." "The United States war in Southeast Asia killed 600,000 people in Cambodia according to the Finnish Inquiry Commission. The total U.S.-caused deaths in Indochina run into the millions." "By 1975, an estimated 10 percent of the Kampuchean population -- 600,000 -- had already died as a result of the Vietnam War. Those 600,000 deaths were caused by U.S. efforts to track down Vietnamese communists. According to the Peter Jennings documentary "The Killing Fields", Cambodia specifically absorbed 500,000 tons of U.S. bombs in the early 1970s." "The U.S.-instigated war -- and the bombings in particular -- also caused the creation of 2 million refugees, who flooded the cities. The cities then came to depend on the U.S. food aid to live because of the war and the inefficiency of the right-wing Lon Nol regime." "Hence, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge seized power from Lon Nol in 1975 in the worst possible situation: The people were starving, Kampuchea was the poorest country in the world and one-third of its people were refugees." "Executions and other deaths" "The Boston Globe coverage of Pol Pot's death contained this characterization of the Khmer Rouge: "When the Khmer Rouge marched into the capital on April 17, 1975 to establish their agrarian society, they chased out city dwellers at gunpoint, killed anyone suspected of being an intellectual, forced millions into labor camps, and demanded that children inform on their parents. People were often arrested simply for wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language. Money and private property were abolished, schools and temples were shuttered, and medicine and food became scarce. During a nearly four-year reign, as many as 2 million people died of starvation, execution illness or overwork." "Pol Pot did execute between 75,000 and 150,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Most of those executions took place in the context of war between Vietnam and Cambodia.Vietnam invaded in 1978 and threw the Khmer Rouge out of power.The famous skull-pile pictures from Kampuchea come from a policy especially aimed at the Vietnamese.Serious famine followed again after the final Vietnamese invasion of December 1978, and by the time international aid started it was too late for many. A total of 2 million, or 30 percent of the population, died in the 1970s from the U.S. war, the Pol Pot period and Vietnamese invasions." "The United States aided the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s, because they were enemies of U.S. foes, the Vietnamese, who had invaded and ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979."