ViperOverLord wrote:Woodruff wrote:ViperOverLord wrote:Anyone that wants to continue Obama's failing Marxist policies should absolutely vote for Coons. In college he once editorialized about being under the direct influence of Marxism. I mean as long as we're going to be holding O'Donnel's past against her then we should at least not have a double standard on that.
You've called me a Marxist on several occasions...are you sure you know what a Marxist is?
I can spot people that are enacting Marxist policies. If they are doing that I'm not going to hesitate to call them a Marxist as I don't believe in Marxism and believe that it leads to much greater subversion than our free market capitalism system has ever created. And the proof of that is, that even though Obama has greatly been influenced by Marxist influences and enacted Marxist policies, he is too chicken to own up to it. He can't even stand up for what he really believes.
You haven't actually described Marxism, though. You're simply saying "I know a Marxist when I see one" and absolutely refuse to come up with a solid answer. If I didn't know better (which I do), I'd say you didn't have a goddamn clue about what you're talking about. At all. About anything. Seriously.
In fact, for you to even contemplate labeling the contemporary economic paradigm as been even remotely analogous to a free market is sheer fucking stupidity. The existing capitalist system that we live under owes precious little to free markets. From its beginnings in the late Middle Ages, it has been shaped by massive and ceaseless intervention and enforcement of privilege -- much of it breathtakingly brutal -- by the State. To adapt a phrase from Orwell, the past has been a boot stamping on a human face.
The State has played a central role in creating the defining characteristic of capitalism as we know it: the wage system. Had free markets been allowed to develop peacefully, with the peasant majorities remaining in control of their land and with free access to the means of subsistence, labor markets would likely have taken a much different form. Employers would have had to compete with the possibility of self-employment, available to the vast majority of the population. But thanks to Enclosures and similar land expropriations over a period of several centuries, the majority of the population was turned into a landless proletariat totally dependent on wage labor for its subsistence.
A genuinely free market can only exist in the absence of the State. Suggesting that an economic paradigm built on government guaranteed revenue through the enforcement of absentee titles, patents, and other forms of privilege indicates that you have no functional understanding of what a free market is. Sheldon Richman summed it up pretty well:
Many self-styled defenders of the free market misunderstand the American system. They believe that under a thin layer of government intervention lies the system they cherish. All we need to do is scrape away that layer, and glorious capitalism will be restored.
They couldn’t be more wrong. There is no thin layer of intervention. Government has intruded deeply into economic activity from the beginning, most particularly in banking and finance, which is by nature at the center of any economy. The web of privilege and control is pervasive, touching all parts of the economy. Moreover, this intervention was never imposed on bankers, financiers, and the rest of the business elite. It was welcomed — to be more precise, it was invited and sponsored by them. Free enterprise, risk, and loss were for the little guy. Partnership with the state was for the elite. That partnership meant favoritism and protection from competition. It meant exemption from market discipline and exploitation of taxpayers, consumers, and workers.
I know people like Baron would argue that you're either full fledged Marxist or not and I understand that position. But I have no problem calling someone a Marxist if they are practicing Marxism. I don't think they should necessarily have to have a full fledged bloody revolution plan like in the case of Lenin to be considered a Marxist.
If you want a shorter answer, Yes I know what a Marxist is. Do you know what a Marxist is? Please explain it if you do.
How was Lenin a Marxist? If you knew anything about Leninism or Marxism, you'd know that Leninism is a
deviation from Marxism,
not an extension of it. Jesus fucking christ, have you ever bothered to pick up a book that doesn't fit your own myopic view of the world?
