Buddhist Anarchism

[Zhen Li]

Well, if products are being sold at a cost less than it costs to produce them, then that means the company would lose money. That would mean that the producer could not attract investments/loans etc.... so they would go bust. ... Of course, producers don't keep on producing when their products can't be sold for a profit... so a crisis of overcapacity is another way of looking at it.... those producers will eventually go bust.

Yes, sometimes they do if demand never picks up. You see, the point is that when you sell goods at a lower price than production, they will sell faster because they're cheaper. This means that the supply will be lower, therefore demand will rise again - that's when you rise prices and avoid going bust. It also allows you to out compete the competition, and it can also make the good more popular if it is not a permanent good, meaning you can create a demand where none existed before - this is why Ford sold the Model-T at lower than production value, because it pays off long term. Investors know these strategies, so it doesn't necessarily imply that they'll turn away from investing.

You are right that 'markets' always have more money.... but 'markets' actually consist of a relatively small percentage of people, mainly rich investors. I'm more concerned with the end users of those products, the ordinary people who suffer.

Everyone has money, potential or real. You exchange the commodities you produce for money. The most common form of making money is by working, i.e. selling your labour. In fact, major corporations have only employees who sell labour, the only businesses where profit belongs to a person is a small or family business. In corporations the executives are paid salaries, even the CEO works for a wage - their wages are higher because their work is of greater value, they have skills which the shareholders are willing to pay more for, because they know how to make greater returns on investments. As for the rich investors, the majority of the worlds wealth isn't held by them - if it was the economies of the world would be insanely unstable and inflation and deflation would rocket out of control from day to day, this is because the richest investors take high amounts of risk to make that money. Instead, the majority of investors hold shares in relatively stable stocks. As for where the majority of the worlds wealth lies, unfortunately it's in debt, but that's another issue that is rooted in issues with currencies.

David Harvey wasn't just talking about moving labour or companies around when he was talking about capitalism moving its problems around. One way of solving its problems is just to destroy capacity... i.e. close factories, sack workers, they even destroy produce ... like when the EU stored food millions of tons of food until it went rotten just to keep prices high in the market. I heard something about a Japanese company that took grain out to sea to dump it... though it might have been an urban myth?

Commodity destruction is different from the notion of the displacement of crisis. So we're talking about different things, but I mentioned this here: "A depression for Marx is the period in which excess production is sold off and demand rises again." You can refer to my argument after that in the previous post for what my opinion is of that. If you want to talk about the causes of depressions, we can later.

Anyway, 'demand' here means economic demand.... not the real needs of ordinary people. There are people who have desperate need in this world: homes, food, medicine etc. but because they are poor they don't produce the economic demand... the corps don't want to reduce prices to sell to them because they want to keep prices and profits up. It is shameful that some child in a third world country can work all day producing trainers and shoes, but can't afford to buy shoes for themselves.... that's capitalism.

One of the main reasons the third world is the way it is, is both poor management today, and the presence of communism. Most of these countries are former or communist/socialist regimes. Markets do require a country with good management and good security, which is what most of the third world doesn't have. And today, the governments of those nations allow western corporations to come into their countries and do this. These countries also let the IMF and World Bank sell them junk loan deals. They should not be doing this, they should raise border and trade controls, develop their own industries without external competition, and then export when those industries are developed. This is what South Korea did: South Korea was far more backwards and less developed than North Korea before the war, but by using trade controls and limiting external commerce, they were able to develop their own industries and technologies, and then export them and open the borders when they are on an economic par. In the end, let's be honest, can you name one third world country that isn't run by an idiot? How can a nation like Venezuela, which has immense riches, be as poor as it is, while Singapore, which is just an island with no resources, can provide all the wishes of its citizens?

I simply don't accept your assertion that there has never been a crisis of over production/capacity. I think we are in one right now.... but of course capitalist economists will avoid giving that explanation ... they blame it on the weather, or sun-spots or the alignments of the planets etc. , but they generally work for big firms or simply havent been educated in marxian economics or understand it... that is why they got taken by surprise... that is why they are desperate to come up with an 'explanation' of these 'black swan' events that don't point the finger at the profit driven capitalist system itself.

I have been educated in Marxian economics, and I don't work for a big firm. This is a really silly conspiracy theory.

I can explain it but I don't have time right now. But there are a lot of explanations, and a lot of economists warned of the 2008 crisis, as with many others. For the most part I agree with Misesian economics now, but I have reservations on some points. Anyway, here's an explanation, which you don't think exists, http://mises.org/daily/3263

Marx thought that, overtime (unless distorted by monopolies etc) , supply and demand would tend to average out. Even though there are fluctuations, generally, production would be increased to meet demend. This means that the profit that a firm makes actually comes from paying the worker less than the true value of their labour.

No, that's not Marx, Marx argues that profit is surplus value of the commodity produced - and your explanation is a non sequitur.

Look, the simple way for you to get around this, is to actually read Marx's capital - in fact, David Harvey's lectures, if you go with them along with the book, are great. But I think he only covers Volume I. Be sure to read all 3, and also read Wage Labour and Capital, the Grundrisse, and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1848.

Here's Marx on wages:

Let us take any worker; for example, a weaver. The capitalist supplies him with the loom and yarn. The weaver applies himself to work, and the yarn is turned into cloth. The capitalist takes possession of the cloth and sells it for 20 shillings, for example. Now are the wages of the weaver a share of the cloth, of the 20 shillings, of the product of the work? By no means. Long before the cloth is sold, perhaps long before it is fully woven, the weaver has received his wages. The capitalist, then, does not pay his wages out of the money which he will obtain from the cloth, but out of money already on hand.....Wages, therefore, are not a share of the worker in the commodities produced by himself. Wages are that part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labor-power.....

Now, the same general laws which regulate the price of commodities in general, naturally regulate wages , or the price of labor-power. Wages will now rise, now fall, according to the relation of supply and demand, according as competition shapes itself between the buyers of labor-power, the capitalists, and the sellers of labor-power, the workers. The fluctuations of wages correspond to the fluctuation in the price of commodities in general. But within the limits of these fluctuations the price of labor-power will be determined by the cost of production, by the labor-time necessary for production of this commodity: labor-power.

What, then, is the cost of production of labor-power?

It is the cost required for the maintenance of the laborer as a laborer, and for his education and training as a laborer.

Then after you read Marx's works, please read the works of Mises, and compare.

And in the end, you're still overlooking the central point and the central thesis - you're not making arguments which prove or disprove the labour theory of value, that's the thesis on which all of Marx's arguments rest.

Please see my post on that topic above.

[tellyontellyon]

Actually, Marx does talk about supply and demand in "Value, price and profit:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... ce-profit/

Here is an extract (sorry it's so long, but it will save you searching:
Price, taken by itself, is nothing but the monetary expression of value. The values of all commodities of the country, for example, are expressed in gold prices, while on the Continent they are mainly expressed in silver prices. The value of gold or silver, like that of all other commodities is regulated by the quantity of labour necessary for getting them. You exchange a certain amount of your national products, in which a certain amount of your national labour is crystallized, for the produce of the gold and silver producing countries, in which a certain quantity of their labour is crystallized. It is in this way, in fact by barter, that you learn to express in gold and silver the values of all commodities, that is the respective quantities of labour bestowed upon them. Looking somewhat closer into the monetary expression of value, or what comes to the same, the conversion of value into price, you will find that it is a process by which you give to the values of all commodities an independent and homogeneous form, or by which you express them as quantities of equal social labour. So far as it is but the monetary expression of value, price has been called natural price by Adam Smith, “prix necessaire” by the French physiocrats.

What then is the relation between value and market prices, or between natural prices and market prices? You all know that the market price is the same for all commodities of the same kind, however the conditions of production may differ for the individual producers. The market price expresses only the average amount of social labour necessary, under the average conditions of production, to supply the market with a certain mass of a certain article. It is calculated upon the whole lot of a commodity of a certain description.

So far the market price of a commodity coincides with its value. On the other hand, the oscillations of market prices, rising now over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the fluctuations of supply and demand. The deviations of market prices from values are continual, but as Adam Smith says:

“The natural price is the central price to which the prices of commodities are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this center of repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.”

I cannot now sift this matter. It suffices to say the if supply and demand equilibrate each other, the market prices of commodities will correspond with their natural prices, that is to say with their values, as determined by the respective quantities of labour required for their production. But supply and demand must constantly tend to equilibrate each other, although they do so only by compensating one fluctuation by another, a rise by a fall, and vice versa. If instead of considering only the daily fluctuations you analyze the movement of market prices for longer periods, as Mr. Tooke, for example, has done in his History of Prices, you will find that the fluctuations of market prices, their deviations from values, their ups and downs, paralyze and compensate each other; so that apart from the effect of monopolies and some other modifications I must now pass by, all descriptions of commodities are, on average, sold at their respective values or natural prices. The average periods during which the fluctuations of market prices compensate each other are different for different kinds of commodities, because with one kind it is easier to adapt supply to demand than with the other.

If then, speaking broadly, and embracing somewhat longer periods, all descriptions of commodities sell at their respective values, it is nonsense to suppose that profit, not in individual cases; but that the constant and usual profits of different trades spring from the prices of commodities, or selling them at a price over and above their value. The absurdity of this notion becomes evident if it is generalized. What a man would constantly win as a seller he would constantly lose as a purchaser. It would not do to say that there are men who are buyers without being sellers, or consumers without being producers. What these people pay to the producers, they must first get from them for nothing. If a man first takes your money and afterwards returns that money in buying your commodities, you will never enrich yourselves by selling your commodities too dear to that same man. This sort of transaction might diminish a loss, but would never help in realizing a profit. To explain, therefore, the general nature of profits, you must start from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are sold at their real values, and that profits are derived from selling them at their values, that is, in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If you cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it at all. This seems paradox and contrary to every-day observation. It is also paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by every-day experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.

As to your proposal that third world countries are the way they are because of bad management and socialism... Are you for real? Most of the third world was raped by capitalist imperialists. Who do you think the IMF are exactly? They represent the interests of big capital? Debt? Debt 'owed' to who exactly.... that same exploitative capitalist clique.

We could go round like this all day... pulling out this quote or that quote. What's the point.

Some articles on Korea:
http://www.socialistworld.net/view/135

Edit: Read Mises.... standard 'you're all living beyond your mean's' standard drivel.
A more humanitarian and correct way of looking at things is to say that the Capitalist system is unable to provide adequate means for people to live by.
It seems like madness that big business is sitting on massive piles of cash in corporate reserves (over £850 billion in the UK) while at the same time there is huge social need and people are unemployed or underemployed. We've got money, people to do the work and lots of jobs that need doing.... but we get stuck, gummed up by capitalism. The system that doesn't do anything unless there is a fast buck involved. Meanwhile, the number of deaths in the UK due to freezing temperatures is up bu 30% as fuel prices soar.

[Zhen Li]

Actually, Marx does talk about supply and demand in "Value, price and profit:

I have no idea what you're replying to with this.

As to your proposal that third world countries are the way they are because of bad management and socialism... Are you for real? Most of the third world was raped by capitalist imperialists. Who do you think the IMF are exactly? They represent the interests of big capital? Debt? Debt 'owed' to who exactly.... that same exploitative capitalist clique.

Who do you think let the IMF in? It was the irresponsible governments of these countries - if they had a decent governor, that wouldn't happen. Most of the third world was better managed under imperialists than under their own management. No one should be ignorant of the great contributions of skilled colonial administrators in the past, such as Mountstuart Elphinstone, Sir Stamford Raffles, or Lord Curzon. One should compare Egypt under self-rule, with Egypt under the management of Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer. It is also unpopular, but not untrue, to argue that the average native was far better off under colonial rule in Rhodesia, the Congo, South Africa, and Jamaica. Thus, one suggestion which I have heard, and which I do support, that the west should do for the third world is, instead of offering foreign aid and IMF deals, western nations should offer the services of advisers and administrators, which developing countries can hire for a fee. Of course, I don't believe that western governments are managed well today, although they're better than the third world, so they'd need to change before that's reasonable to suggest -- someone in a hole can't pull someone else out of the hole.

Some articles on Korea:
http://www.socialistworld.net/view/135

What do you want me to do with these articles?

Edit: Read Mises.... standard 'you're all living beyond your mean's' standard drivel.
A more humanitarian and correct way of looking at things is to say that the Capitalist system is unable to provide adequate means for people to live by.

Okay, don't save up your money, just take out loans and buy whatever you want. Don't come crying to me when you realise how money works.

It seems like madness that big business is sitting on massive piles of cash in corporate reserves (over £850 billion in the UK) while at the same time there is huge social need and people are unemployed or underemployed. We've got money, people to do the work and lots of jobs that need doing.... but we get stuck, gummed up by capitalism. The system that doesn't do anything unless there is a fast buck involved. Meanwhile, the number of deaths in the UK due to freezing temperatures is up bu 30% as fuel prices soar.

And businesses don't sit on reserves, that'd be stupid, if money doesn't circulate then it loses value and it doesn't expand.

And yes, the UK and most of the world has high unemployment and bad management -- I never claimed that I believe in these silly governments, they suck and I have a better model!

[tellyontellyon]

Ha, you accuse others of not reading your posts... I sometimes wonder if you have read them yourself!



What's your better model? "Enlightened Despotism"?
What is that?


p.s.
You don't appear to believe in corporate reserves and so they don't enter your 'model'. A brief Google search will turn up loads on this. Here is only one example:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... ny/260006/

Here's another account from Moody's:
http://www.businessinsider.com/moodys-c ... eas-2012-3

Another account from Deloitte:
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Uni ... aradox.pdf

p.p.s
You don't really think people were better off as colonies? That's really off the deep end. The slaves weren't singing because they were happy.... you do know that, don't you?

[Zhen Li]

Yes, Enlightened Despotism. What is it? I don't think you're ready to find out. When you're more open minded you will.

And yes, colonies were often managed better than they aree otherwise. Slavery doesn't exist in most of Africa because it was abolished actively by European powers.read about Chinese Gordan. The British spent millions of pounds in actively seeking out and abolishing the slave trade in Africa. If they never set ffoot on the continent it would still be widespread today - the most common form was of course Muslim slavery, since their religion permits enslaving non-believers. Today, unfortunately, slavery still exists in many parts of central and western Africa.

As regards corporate reserves, my opinion still stands, its a stupid business strategy, but the reason corps do this has more to do with poor management on the US fed level, and delves into issues with currency.

[tellyontellyon]

I would like to know about your proposed "Enlightened Despotism" and how you think it would work? Though I really don't like the sound of it.
Also, do you have any candidates in mind for who this enlightened despot is going to be? How would they be chosen? What would happen to me under this system if I campaigned against it?

As for the rest of your last post? I don't know what to say really...
Have you any idea of how insensitive and offensive your attitude is?


p.s.
Historical lecture on Karl Mark.... quite funny!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_44XPWXGIk

[Zhen Li]

Yes, all that is worked out. It's too long to explain here. As for your question, there aren't campaigns in Enlightened Despotism.

As for your second paragraph, I haven't the slightest idea of what is insensitive or offensive. Are you an apologist for slavery? That I didn't expect.

[tellyontellyon]

No campaigns in "enlightened despotism" eh?.... So I suppose that means prison or the firing squad for me... because I'm not going to tolerate a despot. Who exactly has 'worked it all out' anyway? Was that just you by yourself or did you have some help?

What you said was offensive because you gave credit to certain (at the time) world powers for ending slavery... when in fact they had perpetuated it and profited from it. Britain built an empire on the back of it. To give them credit for ending it would simply be rewarding them for stopping something that they should never have been doing in the first place. Britain literally robbed, raped and murdered its way across the globe... Britain invented the concentration camps for goodness sakes; Winston Churchill wanted to gas the Kurds!
Also, I don't know why you felt it necessary to mention slavery in connection with Islam. All religious societies have had slave ownership at some point or other, including Buddhist societies.

[Zhen Li]

No campaigns in "enlightened despotism" eh?.... So I suppose that means prison or the firing squad for me... because I'm not going to tolerate a despot. Who exactly has 'worked it all out' anyway? Was that just you by yourself or did you have some help?

Well, not extraterrestrials. It's based on the thought of thinkers from the 17th to 21st century.

But, no I don't think prison or the firing squad will be the consequence for people who try to run campaigns in this model - they'd be ignored, and probably end up like a homeless guy shouting on a street corner about conspiracy theories.

What you said was offensive because you gave credit to certain (at the time) world powers for ending slavery... when in fact they had perpetuated it and profited from it. Britain built an empire on the back of it. To give them credit for ending it would simply be rewarding them for stopping something that they should never have been doing in the first place.

Funny how they don't teach history in school any more. No African nation abolished slavery before Europe influenced them to do it. Britain for one, spent untold amounts of energy abolishing slavery and the slave trade, to no benefit of the mother country. It was the first empire to actively abolish slavery, the African empires of Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, Kanem Bornou Empire, Marinid Empire, Hafsid Empire, the Mamluks, the Ajuuraan Empire, the Empire of Kitara, the Adal Sultanate, Ethiopia, and Greater Zimbabwe all built their empires on the backs of slaves, and unlike the British and other Europeans, never once had the common courtesy to abolish it -- it had to be done for them. The fact that Britain built SOME parts of the "First British Empire" (i.e. the Caribbean and South 13 Colonies), makes it no worse than its African counterparts, and is vindicated for being the first to champion its abolition starting in 1772. You can deny history all you want. It doesn't change it:
Chinese Gordon
Somersett's Case
William Wilberforce
John Graves Simcoe
Beilby Porteus
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Knight v Wedderburn
Slavery Abolition Act 1833
Frederick Lugard
African Association
West Africa Squadron
Abolitionism

Britain literally robbed, raped and murdered its way across the globe...

Who said anyone supports robbing, rape and murder? For the most part, Britain prevented these by bringing rule of law. You realise that these are all illegal under Common Law right?

Britain invented the concentration camps for goodness sakes

In a guerilla war, the only way to end it is by detaining every possible enemy combatant: http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/dead-end/ . If you read Robert Trinquier's "Modern Warfare," you will see that detention of potential enemy combatants was considered one of the best ways of de-escalating a civil war: http://armyrotc.missouri.edu/pdfs-docs/ ... arfare.pdf .

Modern warfare is a new experience for the majority of our fellow citizens. Even among our friends, the systematic conduct of raids will run into opposition, resulting generally from a total lack of understanding of the enemy and his methods of warfare. This will often be very difficult to overcome.

For example, the fact that the enemy's warfare organization in a single city may consist of several thousand men will come as a surprise even to the majority of high administrative functionaries, who thought sincerely that they were dealing with only a few isolated criminals.

One of the first problems encountered, that of lodging the individuals arrested, will generally not have been anticipated. Prisons, designed essentially to accommodate offenders against common law, will rapidly become inadequate and will not meet our needs. We will be compelled to intern the prisoners under improvised, often deplorable conditions, which will lead to justifiable criticism our adversaries will exploit. From the beginning of hostilities, prison camps should be set up according to the conditions laid down by the Geneva Convention. They should be sufficiently large to take care of all prisoners until the end of the war.

By every means - and this is a quite legitimate tactic - our opponents will seek to slow down and, if possible, put an end to our operations. The fact that a state of war will generally not have been declared will be, as we have already indicated, one of their most effective means of achieving this. In particular, they will attempt to have arrested terrorists treated as ordinary criminals and to have members of their organization considered as minor peacetime offenders.

On this subject, the files of the Algiers terrorist organization divulged some particularly interesting documents. "We are no longer protected by legality," wrote the chief of the Algiers F.L.N. in 1957, when the army had taken over the functions of the police. "We ask all our friends to do the impossible to have legality re-established; otherwise we are lost."

Actually, the peacetime laws gave our enemies maximum opportunities for evading pursuit; it was vital to them that legality be strictly applied. The appeal was not launched in vain. Shortly thereafter, a violent press campaign was unleashed, both in France and abroad, demanding that peacetime laws be strictly adhered to in the course of police operations.

Moreover, this strategy was employed in almost every war until the Fourth Geneva Convention - which restricted detention only to POWs who were actual combatants.

So, if you're referring to the Boer War here, I am not sure what your point could be - you prefer there to be a civil war where civilians keep dying? Or you prefer it to be over as fast as possible? Duh - Which has more negative impact on innocent civilians: internment in a civilized detention center, or involvement in a civil war?

Winston Churchill wanted to gas the Kurds!

Churchill is an idiot.

Also, I don't know why you felt it necessary to mention slavery in connection with Islam. All religious societies have had slave ownership at some point or other, including Buddhist societies.

Because we're talking about Africa. The Islamic slave trade from Africa was the largest slave trade in history, and the longest in duration - it still goes on today in many Muslim countries. Slavery existed everywhere, and was believed in as legitimate by all people until the modern era. But Islam in particular permits and expressly allows for the promotion of slavery as a tactic for winning over converts, which is one explanation for why it was and is so active in the Muslim world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_slavery

[tellyontellyon]

Well, not extraterrestrials. It's based on the thought of thinkers from the 17th to 21st century.

Will you let us know what you stand for, or do you have nothing more to say?

But, no I don't think prison or the firing squad will be the consequence for people who try to run campaigns in this model - they'd be ignored, and probably end up like a homeless guy shouting on a street corner about conspiracy theories.

Fantasy.

....and is vindicated for being the first to champion its abolition starting in 1772.

Firstly, you are idealising the British Empire, second, even if they did do some good things... that doesn't 'vindicate' or excuse the bad things. If I rape and murder a woman, but then release her slave husband from my ownership.... that is hardly deserving of the Nobel Prize. Your views would not be acceptable to the majority of people.... that is hardly surprising as you have already made it clear that you put the right to own 'property' above the welfare of millions.

Who said anyone supports robbing, rape and murder? For the most part, Britain prevented these by bringing rule of law. You realise that these are all illegal under Common Law right?

That is so nieve. Common law didn't stop rich and powerful governments from doing whenever they wanted, and it still doesn't. As I explained in an earlier post. The Law is primarily there to preseve the rights and position of the ruling classes.... By the (rich) people, for the (rich) people.

Britain invented the concentration camps for goodness sakes

In a guerilla war, the only way to end it is by detaining every possible enemy combatant[/quote

Shame on you, that is a dreadful thing to say. You could use that logic to justify absolutely anything.


Also, I don't know why you felt it necessary to mention slavery in connection with Islam. All religious societies have had slave ownership at some point or other, including Buddhist societies.

Because we're talking about Africa. The Islamic slave trade from Africa was the largest slave trade in history, and the longest in duration - it still goes on today in many Muslim countries. Slavery existed everywhere, and was believed in as legitimate by all people until the modern era. But Islam in particular permits and expressly allows for the promotion of slavery as a tactic for winning over converts, which is one explanation for why it was and is so active in the Muslim world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_slavery

No, we weren't talking about Africa. You should take a look at modern slavery all over Europe. People more often held by fear rather than chains, but still slavery never-the-less.
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slav ... avery.aspx

[Zhen Li]

You haven't addressed any significant points in my argument and you didn't provide any substantial refutations.

There's almost no point in replying but I will entertain the idea for a short while.

Will you let us know what you stand for, or do you have nothing more to say? ... Fantasy

I don't have hours of free time. You can't judge if the prediction is fantasy if you don't know what it is. You're still not open minded enough for me to explain it to you.

Firstly, you are idealising the British Empire, second, even if they did do some good things... that doesn't 'vindicate' or excuse the bad things. If I rape and murder a woman, but then release her slave husband from my ownership.... that is hardly deserving of the Nobel Prize. Your views would not be acceptable to the majority of people.... that is hardly surprising as you have already made it clear that you put the right to own 'property' above the welfare of millions.

I'm not idealising, I am telling you historical facts. I am not talking about vindicating rape and murder, your analogy doesn't work. You put the right to steal property and the right to kill innocent civilians in a violent revolution above the welfare of millions. You're blinded by your vision of Marx.

Well, Marx borrowed money from everyone he met. Even while writing letters of condolence after friend's husbands died, he would end the letter with a request for money. He never paid any of it back. Not to mention the fact that Marx brought with him to London his wife's servant whom he never paid. You are the one who is defending slavery, by holding a man who allowed slavery to exist in his own house above the abolition of slavery. Moreover, Marx really didn't care about the welfare of millions, he refused to enter a factory whenever he was given the opportunity and when offered the views of workers he would deride them for their lack of education. Marx stole and plagiarised the work of others without citation, and misquoted even Engels on multiple occasions. Not to mention the fact that the primary motivation of Marx throughout his hole life was very likely antisemitism and his immense hatred of Jewry. Marx drew his conclusion before he made his argument, and that conclusion was based upon his hatred of Jews. He hated capitalism because he hated the Jews who did it well. You'll never know this if you don't read Marx's works.

That is so nieve. Common law didn't stop rich and powerful governments from doing whenever they wanted, and it still doesn't. As I explained in an earlier post. The Law is primarily there to preseve the rights and position of the ruling classes.... By the (rich) people, for the (rich) people.

Firstly, you are an idealist if you think that there's any higher morality in communism, the ideology which justified the deaths of over a hundred thousand in the past century. Who is naive?

Secondly, you are being ignorant of the reality and haven't provided any evidence from primary sources. Common law DID exist in the colonies, and protected, as it protects, the property of people regardless of their wealth - whereas Marxists only want to steal property from people and kill them for power.

Marxism, wherever it is put into practice, is put into practice to serve as a power grab by a small group of educated elites who care nothing about improving the lot of the working class.

No, we weren't talking about Africa. You should take a look at modern slavery all over Europe. People more often held by fear rather than chains, but still slavery never-the-less.

Yes we were talking about Africa. We were talking about colonialism, which doesn't exist in modern Europe.

Wake up!

Marx was an alcoholic who raped his wife's servant daily and refused to recognise the legitimacy of his son. He allowed his children to starve to death and refused to get a job when he needed it - he only applied for one in his life, at the post office, and was refused because he couldn't make an effort to write legibly. Marx hated capitalism because he couldn't manage money. He lived off money lenders and so hated Jews. He drew his conclusion BEFORE he made the argument. He hated his wife and his kids, and lived apart from them in the British Museum trying to gather data for his useless and illogical work Capital - only one volume of which was published with glaring contradictions. If Marx led a revolution he'd have likely killed more than Lenin and Trotsky, and spent his days living off the labour of the working classes in the name of freeing them. Why do people support communism? Usually it is supported by elite literati who never worked a day in their life, who just want to make others work so that they can sustain a luxurious lifestyle. The problem is you have never seriously studied Marx, you just read off these websites which give a lovely picture of him. But try reading some of his letters and correspondence and then you'll learn what a nasty piece of antisemitic and immoral work he really was.
Marx

• Kept a slave
  Raped his slave
  Promoted killing
  Didn't pay back debts
  Refused to work
  Let his children starve
  Was an antisemite
  Didn't recognise son's legitimacy
  Promoted theft
  Engaged in vandalism
  Force his daughters to marry communists
  Refused to visit factories
  Refused to listen to working class people
  Lived in exile from his family
  Led his children to commit suicide
  Alcoholic
  Never bathed
  Borrowed money from all he met
  Had no sympathy for newly widowed
  Likely a sociopath
  Plagiarist

Where do you look for inspiration?

Who do you hold as your role models?

The answer to these questions will tell you a lot about yourself.

Who you take as a role model, you take as your highest friend. Look to the virtuous, not to the vicious:

"One who, overstepping and despising a sense of shame, says, 'I am your friend,' but does not take upon himself any tasks he is capable of doing, is to be recognized as no friend. One who speaks amiably to his companions, but whose actions do not conform to it, him the wise know for certain as a talker not a doer. He is no friend who, anticipating conflict, is always alert in looking out for weaknesses. But he on whom one can rely, like a child sleeping on its mother's breast, is truly a friend who cannot be parted from one by others.

"One who bears the human burden of responsibility, with its fruits and blessings in mind, he cultivates a cause of joy and happiness worthy of praise. Having tasted the flavor of solitude and peace one is free from fear and wrong-doings imbibing the rapture of Dhamma."

[tellyontellyon]

It's ok, I've decided that I don't want to know what 'Enlightened Despotism' is anyway. Your fantasy will never exist so what is the point of knowing about it.

You refuse to see the difference between Marx and Marxism, and also Stalinism and Marxism. I'm not talking about the twisted systems of the soviet union, china, North Korea etc. etc.
I'm talking about genuine marxism based on the widest possible democracy, certainly more democratic than we 'enjoy' under capitalism.

As I have said before, I say we do all have the right to own personal property. Marxists are talking about something different when they say private property: the means of production. I.e. the biggest corporations, the big energy companies, the large financial institutions banks etc. road and rail systems, etc. These should be under the control and management of the mass of ordinary people that depend on them, not a tiny elite.

HH Dalai Lama can see the difference between despotism and real marxism, as can most people who take the time to look deeper:
"The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist." - HHDL

If you can't look further than your dream of 'Enlightened Despotism' that's fine. Many blessings to you.

[Zhen Li]

It's ok, I've decided that I don't want to know what 'Enlightened Despotism' is anyway. Your fantasy will never exist so what is the point of knowing about it.

You refuse to see the difference between Marx and Marxism, and also Stalinism and Marxism.

There's no fundamental difference, one does logically follow from the other.

If you start from principles of immorality, you get results of immorality.

And you're living in a fantasy world if you think Marx isn't Marxism. Marxism means the ideas of Marx. You can't run away from the responsibility of endorsing the ideas of a truly evil man.

I'm not talking about the twisted systems of the soviet union, china, North Korea etc. etc.

What system are you talking about then? Where does it exist? How do you achieve it?

I'm talking about genuine marxism based on the widest possible democracy, certainly more democratic than we 'enjoy' under capitalism.

It's impossible.

Marx's definition of democracy also involves killing anyone who disagrees with it.

As I have said before, I say we do all have the right to own personal property. Marxists are talking about something different when they say private property: the means of production. I.e. the biggest corporations, the big energy companies, the large financial institutions banks etc. road and rail systems, etc. These should be under the control and management of the mass of ordinary people that depend on them, not a tiny elite.

This isn't what Marx says. Read what he says.

All property will be common in communism. No one will own anything.

How do you get there? Simple: kill people who get in your way.

You also don't get to have a family, Marx wanted to abolish all families, so you'll have to live in a commune with everyone else and raise each other's kids and have sex with whoever you want. That's of course Marx's dream, he raped his slave on a frequent basis. But it's certainly sexual misconduct.

What do you think a revolution is anyway? A revolution is where you kill the people you don't like.

HH Dalai Lama can see the difference between despotism and real marxism, as can most people who take the time to look deeper:
"The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist." - HHDL

Has he read Marx? Probably not.

What is Marxism if not totalitarian? Where did Marx say you just peacefully skip into his utopia?

Marx preached TERROR:
"there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_terror
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... -terrorism
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/w ... /11/06.htm
http://www.critical-theory.com/zizek-terror-awesome/

Marx based his idea on the Reign of Terror, which he admired greatly, in which 16,594 people were guillotined, and 25,000 in summary executions. Marx really loved the idea of killing to get his way (because of course he never knew what it was like to work to achieve a goal):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

People like Marx and those who admire him want to CHOP CHOP CHOP. They want to cut off the heads of people who disagree with them. They want to kill to get their ends. How blind can you be? What Marxist is peaceful? Marxism = KILLING.

Marx and Engels wanted to kill everyone who disagreed with revolution, he wanted to WIPE THEM FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH:
"The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... /01/13.htm

You can't advocate WAR without killing. Don't be an idiot - give up these silly beliefs.

Marxism breaks the precepts. It's not compatible with Buddhism.

[tellyontellyon]

Marxism breaks the precepts. It's not compatible with Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama doesn't agree with you and neither do I.

Can you name a capitalist government that keeps the precepts?

Capitalism is in itself a form of theft in my opinion. The labour of the worker must always be worth more to the company than he is paid in wages. The capitalist always takes out more than he has paid in. That is his profit. The worker always makes a net contribution and the capitalist takes that as profit.

Now, I know you don't accept the labour theory of value, that is your opinion. You don't speak for everybody and personally I think the Dalai Lama knows more about it than you. He also has more authority than you.

I have provided links in previous posts for you to investigate what modern democratic socialists (marxists) stand for. Of course many bad things happened under the so called 'communist' governments, but that doesn't mean that the baby is the same thing as the bathwater. (You saying it is doesn't make it so.)

http://www.socialistworld.net/

[Zhen Li]

The Dalai Lama doesn't agree with you and neither do I.

Can you name a capitalist government that keeps the precepts?

Capitalism is in itself a form of theft in my opinion. The labour of the worker must always be worth more to the company than he is paid in wages. The capitalist always takes out more than he has paid in. That is his profit. The worker always makes a net contribution and the capitalist takes that as profit.

For Marx that isn't theft. That's the price of labour. You are confusing Price and Value, they are two different things in Marxian economic.

& There's no such thing as a 'capitalist government.' That's more or less oxymoronic.

You are fooling yourself if you think communist goals can be achieved without breaking precepts.

The main principle of capitalism, which even Marx recognises in Capital, is equal exchange of commodity for capital. It's not a question of theft.

You really should read Marx's work, because otherwise you're just making stuff up. For Marx, communism isn't necessitated because he views capitalism as evil (but that may be his underlying motivation), for him communism is necessitated because of the inherent dialectical tensions within capitalism. It has nothing to do with morality. Marx doesn't believe in morality, okay?

Now, I know you don't accept the labour theory of value, that is your opinion. You don't speak for everybody and personally I think the Dalai Lama knows more about it than you. He also has more authority than you.

Okay then!

I have provided links in previous posts for you to investigate what modern democratic socialists (marxists) stand for. Of course many bad things happened under the so called 'communist' governments, but that doesn't mean that the baby is the same thing as the bathwater. (You saying it is doesn't make it so.)

You saying it isn't doesn't make it so either.

Your links are from a Trotskyist point of view. Note that Trotsky had thousands of his own men executed for desertion and cowardice. Trotsky also was one of the most vocal advocates of executing the royal family.

If Trotsky came to power in Tibet, he'd probably execute HHDL too.

[Nemo]

Zhen Li you are one of the oddest persons to ever come here. Are you a Buddhist? Your views are the essence of American right wing exceptionalist jingoism. In the rest of the world you come off very differently from how you think you do, but like a real 'merican that probably doesn't give you a second thought.

[tellyontellyon]

Zhen Li

Marx, CM Ch. 2:

"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. "

You are also wrong in many other ways. Mainly that you confuse Marx with Marxism, Marxism with Stalinism, and yesterday with today.

I would rather live under a genuinely democratic marxist system than the chaotic and destructive capitalist system; certainly not under your prefered system of "Enlightened Despotism" whatever you imagine that to be?

The previous poster is correct, you do come across as quite odd; like you've been living in a cultural goldfish bowl fed daily by the Tea Party.

[Nemo]

I find Marx's critique of capitalism excellent. The inevitability of monopolies, the crushing down of the cost of labour and the concentration of wealth in very few hands. His ideas on how to solve it are not workable, but that does not mean capitalism does not need to be fixed or thrown out altogether and a better system put in place. This end of history nonsense is just propaganda. We can do better.

Totalitarian communism like Stalin and totalitarian capitalism like Mussolini are almost identical for the 99%. Liberty is more important than economic policy. But I am just a working class guy. If I was rich I am totally on board with you.

[Zhen Li]

Zhen Li you are one of the oddest persons to ever come here. Are you a Buddhist? Your views are the essence of American right wing exceptionalist jingoism. In the rest of the world you come off very differently from how you think you do, but like a real 'merican that probably doesn't give you a second thought.

Yes, I have been a Buddhist almost my entire life. Where did Buddhism come into this? Can you please quote me?

As for my views, I don't know which are the same as any American political ones. I don't think they exist in American political life and I would reject just about every part of American political life. I'm not an American however and I don't reach my views through consideration of the perception of others, but by logic from the first principles of Buddhist morality. If you know something is true, then it is immoral to believe otherwise.

Just as a goldsmith examines gold through various means before assessing the value of it, likewise you should do with all your views.

"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. "

You are also wrong in many other ways. Mainly that you confuse Marx with Marxism, Marxism with Stalinism, and yesterday with today.

You don't understand Marx. Bourgeois property is private property. The alternative for Marx, "proletarian property," is property held in common:

Just as private property is only the perceptible expression of the fact that man becomes objective for himself and at the same time becomes to himself a strange and inhuman object; just as it expresses the fact that the manifestation of his life is the alienation of his life, that his realisation is his loss of reality, is an alien reality: so, the positive transcendence of private property - i.e., the perceptible appropriation for and by man of the human essence and of human life, of objective man, of human achievements should not be conceived merely in the sense of immediate, one-sided enjoyment, merely in the sense of possessing, of having. Man appropriates his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man. Each of his human relations to the world - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, observing, experiencing, wanting, acting, loving - in short, all the organs of his individual being, like those organs which are directly social in their form, are in their objective orientation, or in their orientation to the object, the appropriation of the object, the appropriation of human reality. Their orientation to the object is the manifestation of the human reality, [For this reason it is just as highly varied as the determinations of human essence and activities] it is human activity and human suffering, for suffering, humanly considered, is a kind of self-enjoyment of man.

Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it - when it exists for us as capital, or when it is directly possessed, eaten, drunk, worn, inhabited, etc., - in short, when it is used by us. Although private property itself again conceives all these direct realisations of possession only as means of life, and the life which they serve as means is the life of private property - labour and conversion into capital.

In the place of all physical and mental senses there has therefore come the sheer estrangement of all these senses, the sense of having. The human being had to be reduced to this absolute poverty in order that he might yield his inner wealth to the outer world..

The abolition of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities, but it is this emancipation precisely because these senses and attributes have become, subjectively and objectively, human. The eye has become a human eye, just as its object has become a social, human object - an object made by man for man. The senses have therefore become directly in their practice theoreticians. They relate themselves to the thing for the sake of the thing, but the thing itself is an objective human relation to itself and to man, [in practice I can relate myself to a thing humanly only if the thing relates itself humanly to the human being] and vice versa. Need or enjoyment have consequently lost its egotistical nature, and nature has lost its mere utility by use becoming human use.

I would rather live under a genuinely democratic marxist system than the chaotic and destructive capitalist system; certainly not under your prefered system of "Enlightened Despotism" whatever you imagine that to be?

You don't know what it is. So you are being illogical.

And of course, you are revealing the true colours of your argument: preference. Your stances and your opinions aren't based upon thinking about the issues, but upon how you feel about them.

This is just like Marx, he drew his conclusion based upon his hatred of capitalism first, and then tried to formulate an argument second. But in logic the conclusion follows the premises.

The previous poster is correct, you do come across as quite odd; like you've been living in a cultural goldfish bowl fed daily by the Tea Party.

Do you even know what the Tea Party is? It's the antithesis of everything I stand for.

But what you both are doing is lumping everyone you disagree with into one basket.

[Nemo]

You talk a lot about why other systems are broken yet give no ideations on your own political ideals. Personally my ideals are libertarian socialist but I am too pragmatic to think that is completely workable. You are quoting the Austrian school and sounding a bit like Hayek. Hard not to lump you in with the tea party. If you are not American you should really move or visit a red state in the US. You would love it there, seriously.