My Journey Within a Marxist Study Group

Economics Economics Questions
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It’s hard to discuss economics with a Marxist. It’s even harder when you are an Austrian, the school of thought which is essentially the polar opposite of Marxism.

Below is an email from my Marxist friend, we each attend the same Marxist “study group”. I sent him a link to what I thought was an excellent critique of Marxian thought, (this recent mises.org article, Scipione on Zizek), which prompted a rather heated reply. The reply contains the epitomy of Marxian thinking, the idiosyncratic pejoratives against capitalism replete throughout the email.

He admits, it seems, to having not even read the article I sent him, but goes on to dismiss it as “more right-wing theology from the free-market corprocrats … written by some hack.”

I have found it very hard to have discussions with a person who, having certain predispositions to a particular ideology, casts off any critique against Marxism prior to investigation as simply a conspiracy of capitalist quacks against the working class. The polylogistic lens of Marxism seems to me an intellectually erroneous excuse to endlessly employ one giant ad hominem fallacy at anyone who dare dissent to their theories: if someone agrees, they must be using proletarian logic, which means they are right; if someone disagrees, they are a self serving capitalist hack, which means they have faulty logic. We should never analyze the merits of one’s logical argument, we must simply regard any criticisms apriori as false. (Mises wrote a wonderful critique of polylogism in the beginning of Human Action.)

I will quote a few goodies from Mises, he expresses the same sentiments I have with a much more eloquent tongue:

“The essence of Marxian philosophy is this: We are right because we are the spokesmen of the rising proletarian class. Discursive reasoning cannot invalidate our teachings, for they are inspired by the supreme power that determines the destiny of mankind. Our adversaries are wrong because they lack the intuition that guides our minds.” – Human Action, pp. 83-84

“Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person.” – Socialism, p. 119

“Polylogism denies the uniformity of the logical structure of the human mind. Every social class, every nation, race, or period of history is equipped with a logic that differs from the logic of other classes, nations, races, or ages. Hence bourgeois economics differs from proletarian economics, German physics from the physics of other nations, Aryan mathematics from Semitic mathematics.” – Theory and History, pp. 31-32

I posted this particular email below because I’m sure some will be interested in dissecting the ensuing diatribe. I also posted it hoping for some advice on how to reply, if I should even try.

I feel like giving up. I feel like I just can’t go on with him anymore, any semblance of intellectual and rational discussion has long since flown out the window. Perhaps it is all futile: he is not likely to persuade me, I feel the criticisms of the Austrians and their beautifully constructed theoretical edifice is much too persuasive; I won’t convince him, he’s in his 60’s and has been thinking this way for decades, I’m just some poor punk who’s been duped by a bunch of apologist hacks advocating a system of mass exploitation.

Let me give you a little background on the circumstances: I live in Boulder, CO (alarms already going off). I started attending a Marxist “study group” in a little basement bookstore, a bookstore which supplies more Marxist/Socialist literature than USSR and North Korean public schooling combined. Rather recently, during the months in which these meetings took place, I was deep in the works of Rothbard and Mises nonstop (still am), and have since come to be convinced by the soundness of their criticisms against Marx, and generally persuaded into the austro-anarcho-capitalist outlook, (i.e., don’t initiate acts of aggression, voluntary association and non-coercive exchange is both legitimate and mutually beneficial.) I joined the Marxist study group to discuss, debate, and persuade or be persuaded – in general, to hear the case from the intellectually opposing side in person, straight from the mouth of the beast – unfortunately it didn’t work out so well.

I failed to make a persuasive enough case against the LTV and Marx’s exploitation theory, I tried and tried. I handed out brilliant papers (e.g., Hoppe’s Marxist/Austrian Class Analysis) only to hear them shoot down the critique without even reading it in typical polylogistic fashion. The meetings have since fallen apart. They were absolutely terrible, nothing ever got done, it was nonstop rambling. No one really understood Marx any better, much less any of the criticisms from the other side. It was quite an interesting experience actually. The meetings were disorganized, there was no plan or principle to the whole study group, it was mostly chaos (the bad kind [;)] ), constant digressions – in general, mind draining. Many a time I left feeling as if I had actually lost a good amount of brain cells, feeling confused and flabbergasted.

I had seen and heard many absurd things throughout these bookstore tribulations: A self proclaimed anarchist telling me that deregulation is bad; people advocating a 100% estate tax so as to destroy the rich, who are evil exploiters; that the true source of value is labor, but art is a special case separate from normal value; that the marginalist revolution didn’t solve the water/diamond paradox and the whole idea of marginal utility is a dubious theory; that prices are derived from the average market price (a 3x5 painting will typically sell at the average price for 3x5 paintings – absurd?!?); that the State is simply an inevitable outcome of capitalism; that anarchy should be socialist but still have markets since markets have been proven to be useful; that the free-market is really a slave market; that intelligence is a form of oppression because “knowledge is power” and everyone should be equally intelligent (see here); that methodological individualism is unfounded, illusory, and false, because we are inevitably a product of the collective and society at large.

I’ll try to think of some other jewels of intelligent thought. I even recorded a few sessions, but that was shot down, as it made the members feel too uncomfortable. The gentlemen who wrote the email below summed it up when he said, “There shouldn’t be any recordings because sometimes I say things that are wrong, and I don’t want them to be on record.” Well here is your email, in record, indelible, and online at mises.com, ready for a little intellectual shredding session. I promised you I wouldn’t put the recordings online, but no such gaurantee was made for the email.

Regarding the email: It seems like one giant post hoc propter hoc fallacy, devoid of theory and replete with contradictions (e.g., the State helps exploiters by engaging in war and deregulation, therefore we must hand them more power to regulate better; lowering taxes creates boom-bust cycles; the socialism of the 30’s 40’s and 50’s gave America the best healthcare, made us the most prosperous creditor nation, and made possible the work week of forty hours, etc, etc.)

I’m excited to see what the intelligentsia of mises.com have to offer, for this is bound to make an interesting discussion, and hopefully give me the advice I’m looking for on how to handle this (simple and short reply, point by point reply, just give up already?)

He writes:

I’d appreciate your reading this since I don’t have a lot of time to respond at the moment, and I took time to write this, not copy it from some hack somewhere. With regard to Zizek, this just looks like more right-wing theology from the free-market corpocrats. This is the same blab as the Fox News Republicans. I can get this from the corporate capitalist media 24/7 on every TV and radio station, newspaper and magazine in the country. We’ve done this “market is god” experiment for the last 40 years; I paid for it! It was a catastrophic failure.

Zizek refers to the “Nanny State”? You bet. That’s what the capitalist Republicans brought us. Nannies are working class women who take care of the spoiled little brats of the propertied elite. The capitalist property priests have turned us all into nannies for the 1% of the unproductive, risk-averse, profligate owning class who, in general, neither produce nor homestead nor save. Oh… did they hurt their little feet stomping on the people that give them their wealth. Let’s take a couple of trillion dollars from the real producers an give it to the poor babies so they stop whining. So the “nanny state”, must be one that gives the mewling propertied elite everything they want at the expense of the rest of us. And the free-marketeers believe this to be the founding principle of a just, free, equitable society? I don’t think so.

The facts are these: in 1969, after 30 years of “Socialism” (ha-ha), the United States:

  • Was the largest creditor nation in the world
  • We had the, by all measures, best health care system on the planet
  • The median net worth was ~80% of the mean, a reasonably equitable distribution of property.
  • We had by most measures, the highest standard of living.
  • The average work week was slightly over 40 hrs. and most workers received overtime pay for work weeks longer than this.
  • Over 30 years there was continued steady economic growth, with one recession during the Republican Eisenhower administration
  • The national debt stood at $1.68 T (All debt expressed in Year 2000 $)
  • The German Mark (which was to become the Euro) stood at 0.33 US dollars and the dollar was the trusted reserver currency for the world

Then began the experiment by de-regulation obsessed uber-capitalists; just off the top of my head, here’s how it went:

  • In 1968 we begin the corporatist Nixon/Ford regime.
  • In 1973 the Trilateral Commission is formed by the economic elite touting free-market, free-trade ideologies. They immediately formulate and publish the GATT policies for
    globalization.
  • In 1973 we have a major economic downturn, the worst since the 30s.
  • In 1975, the national debt stands at $1.71 T.
  • In 1976 it’s Carter who puts 17 Trilateralists in key government positions, including all cabinet posts.
  • In 1979 free-marketeer Margaret Thatcher elected in the UK; invents the terms “Nanny State” while British workers are emptying her diapers.
  • In 1979 the national debt is $1.91 T.
  • In 1979 Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzenski, articulates a policy of destablizing the USSR by supporting Islamists in Afghanistan
  • In 1980 it’s Reagan expounding the free-market doctrine and vowing to eliminate big government. The Republicans vow to attack all regulations of corporations or markets and a policy of non-enforcement.
  • In 1980 food, energy and health care remove from cost of living index (who needs these anyway?)
  • 1980-1988 Reagan massively increases funding to Islamists.
  • 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war; US eggs Saddam into invading Iran. Cheney meets with Saddam. US and its allies provide funding, expertise in chemical warfare, weapons and intelligence (including weather data allowing Saddam to effective use chemical warfare). Over a million people die.
  • In 1983 we have the worst economic downturn since 1929.
  • In 1983, responding to a massive communist military menace, make it’s glorious preemptive strike on Grenada (pop. 110, 000). The British aerospace giant, Plessy (contractors for the avionics suite for the Harrier jump-jet, and prime contractor for the improvement of the airport in Grenada) makes a snarky public response pointing out that the Cuban army invaders are actually construction workers in the employ of Plessy, along with a dozen reasons why the airport is unsuitable for military use. The media-stoned American Public wets themselves over a war we can win.
  • In 1987 we have the S&L crash, transferring over $1 trillion from the pockets of producers to the propertied elite; this is a direct result of S&L deregulation and non-enforcement. Over $5 Billion of this goes to bail out Neil Bush’s Silverado S&L.
  • In 1987 the national debt is $3.49 T.
  • In 1988, Bush 1 continues Reaganoid policies.
  • In 1989, Bush invades Panama to remove the dictator that Bush installed when he was the Director of the CIA. Seems his boy Noriega was skimming off more than his share of the profits from the CIA’s cocaine trade being run through Panama to fund the Contras.
  • In 1990, the first Gulf War. Saddam, his economy in shambles due to war and dropping oil prices, invades Kuwait, claiming Kuwait, with the help of Haliburton, has been slant-drilling into Iraq’s Ramalia oil field, in contravention of an international agreement between the two countries. US Ambassador April Glaspie having assured him “…we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Oil prices rise.
  • In 1991 the national debt is $4.68 T, having doubled in 12 years of capitalist deregulation and “fiscal conservatism”, and massive gifts to aerospace corps and bankers.
  • In 1992 Clinton takes office, a corporatist slightly to the right of Nixon signs NAFTA but attempts to rescue the elite from the mess they created.
  • In 1999 the national debt is $5.81 T.
  • In 1999 the DotCom crash
  • In 2000, Bush 2 appointed president on the most explicitly free-market anti-regulation platform so far. Uses illegal signing statements and directives, we see the most massive intervention to inhibit regulation of the free (i.e. slave) market. A “jobless” recovery slowly ensues, widening the gap between producers and owners.
  • In 2001 - Islamist chickens come home to roost, funded by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, trained by CIA-trained elements in the Pakistani IIS and the Islamist survivors of the us funded campaign in Afghanistan… Bush blames Iraq. American public eats his shit.
    -In 2008, predictably, the free-market deregulation chickens come home to roost; 1929 repeats itself. Britain, still under the thrall of Thatcherism experiences a similar collapse; the highly regulated, socialist EU does much better. Bush’s free-market nanny state hands out trillion dollar checks to squalling corporate babies; the situation worsens for almost everyone else.
  • In 2009, Obama, despite the rhetoric, continues Bush’s corporatist policies and another “jobless” recovery ensues.

So, in 2009 after 40 years of deregulation and free-market policies;

  • Top bracket individual tax rates dropped from 91% to 33%
  • Estate taxes have dropped even more precipitously
  • The corporate tax rate is now 29th out of 33 largest industrial economies (the lowest rate being 33rd). The capitalist free-market apologists will tell you the US rate is 2nd highest, which is true. The conveniently fail to mention that due to a list of exemptions the size of the Manhattan telephone directory (no kidding; look at the IRS code sometime) the corporations never pay this rate.
  • In terms of corporate freedom from regulation the US ranks second, having just lost its first place position to Switzerland
  • Gains in the '60s and early '70s in women’s and minority rights have been aggressively attacked and rolled back
    In other words, the Bush-Clinton-Reagan free-market agenda has been quite successful and reducing taxes on the elite and deregulating the market.

The result:

  • The national debt stands at $9.51 T.
  • The Euro stands at 1.45 dollars and the major economies (especially the BRICs) are scrambling to get their reserves in something other than dollars.
  • Three major economic crashes.
  • The US is now the largest debtor nation in the world.
  • In terms of balance of trade, the US goes from be one of the largest exporters to one of the largest importers.
  • The median net worth has fallen below 20% of the mean. America has the most disproportionate distribution of wealth in the world, followed closely by Mexico.
  • The American much vaunted free-enterprise health-care system ranks 72 in the world in cost effectiveness, 37th in the world in terms of outcome (between the Republic of Slovenia and Cuba), dead last terms of cost per capita, absolute and as a percentage of GDP, and one of the worst in terms of percentage of population covered. Were it not for “socialist” Medicare, its ranking would be somewhere around 90th in cost effectiveness, and in terms of outcome, the rank would be down among the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also the worst in rationing medical care, worst in wait times for critical care (when you figure in those who can’t afford care and wait for the rest of their lives), worst in terms in obtrusive intervention between patient and provider, at 31%, worst in terms bureaucratic overhead including insurance company “death” panels which deny valid claims to enhance profits and as a result kill more Americans in a year than “terrorists” have killed in the last 200 years… all of which would be much worse were it not for the “socialized” Medicare/Medicaid. “We need tort reform” they squeal. In the 20 or so states which have implemented tort reform at the state level, the medical care costs INCREASED in all of them. Nice try! All countries ranking better in this regard have “socialized medicine.”
  • The average work week has increased by over 20% since 1968 while overall compensation dropped (wages + benefits); the American labor force is the world’s most productive, but one of the most poorly compensated in the industrialized countries. Producers, homesteaders, savers are working harder, longer and more effectively and getting much less.
  • The overall standard of living has dropped from the best in the world to 13th, despite the highest per capita resource consumption. The 12 countries which are better are all “socialist”.
  • Economic growth stagnates in the US - “socialist” India and China experience double-digit growth for a decade fueled by outsourced American jobs and factories.
  • Despite all the rhetoric, the most productive and creative businesses, small and medium sized businesses and startups, have been savaged by this economic policy, being the primary victims of the .com and current bubbles.

Nice going guys! The experiment has been performed and the outcome is known.

Note: Almost all stats come from international organizations, corporate publications (e.g. the Economist), the US Census Bureau, Treasury Dept and the Federal Reserve, all of which would be expected to paint as rosy a picture as possible. [BTW - regarding your assertion of that the Economist is a left-wing publication because they feature Paul Krugman, I looked through the last few months and the only reference I noticed to Krugman was a brief summary of some lectures he was doing in London, offered without analysis. Could you provide me with a few cites (say 10, issue and page numbers), articles by or positive references to Krugman from the Economist?].

I am not interested in hearing anymore stats or blab from corporate-sponsored advertising agencies like the Hoover Institution (what can one say about an Institution named after the guy who presided over the last crash), the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the Freedom Forum, the Reason Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Cato Institute, FoxNews or any other company owned by Rupert Murdock; Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Michell Malkin, Lew Dobbs, Bill O’Rielly or any other of the hundreds of neo-Nazi racist media hacks who dominate the political scene in America – unless it’s an sincere apology for creating this catastrophe.

I know of no historical case since the rise of industrial capitalism where absence government intervention of taxation or regulation has ever produced any improvement in the lives majority of the population (i.e. the actual producers). In all cases, any improvement in the living conditions of most producers has been brought about by worker actions to limit capitalists, often taking the form of government regulations. This includes:

  • raising living standards above bare subsistence
  • limiting working hours and the work week; the concept of the “week end”
  • reducing the exposure of workers to lethal hazards
  • medical and retirement benefits
  • unemployment
  • compensation for injured workers
  • regulation of lethal environmental pollution
  • regulation of toxins and pathogens in the food and water supply
    Workers paid for this with their lives and blood; free-market capitalists have historically opposed, often violently, every advance that might improve the lives of 99% of the people.

Anarcho-capitalism and the removal of all restraint on the actions of the propertied elite. As I’ve said before, those that are sincere mistake the locus of power and coercion in society. The capitalist, propertied hereditary elite by-in-large OWN the government; it acts on their behalf. As Zappa put it, "The government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex."The elite differ only in their assessment of how far they can immiserate the rest of us before revolt ends with “…the last capitalist hung with the guts of the last priest.”

Remove all regulation and

  • The owners ally and form even larger consortia to oppress the population
  • Private police and armies replace government coercion; there are already more than 100 corporations provide such services… effectively corporate terrorist policing in policing, intelligence, covert and over military ops, interrogation and torture, etc. They operate globally.
  • Policing will be supplemented by the elimination of any alternate viewpoint - the global ownership of all media will assure this.
  • The reduction of the population to absolute misery. There is no freedom for the hungry.

This isn’t theoretical - our 40 year experiment and the last 200 years of history confirm it. It is my belief that the drive to accumulate property beyond one’s needs represents a drive to dominate, control and coerce others. It may be some element of human nature, or individual pshchopathology, or, by in large, the result of living under a society where the choices are to dominate or be dominated. But whatever the source, I don’t think there is any social interest in promoting it.

Anarcho-capitalists believe “your money or your life” is a “free choice.” The gun to the producer’s head is the threat of starvation: there is no free choice and it’s simply fatuous to assert this. The only unique skill of the elite in this society is parasitism - living on the work of others.

If you can come up with any realistic anarcho-capitalist scenario where leaving hereditary concentrations of wealth and property relations intact and removing “government intervention in the market” can result in the improvement in the freedom and welfare of the vast majority of the people, I’m all ears. But the approach of the free-market theorists has been to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Unconvincing! If they cannot come up with a realist explanation of why this won’t simply result in more concentration of wealth and impoverishment of the majority of people, I’m not interested. Absent this, Anarcho-capitalism appears to be literally a religion, derived from the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines of the Reformation that the wealth is evidence of God’s grace, and therefor the wealthy are virtuous and just. It just flies in the face of all empirical and historical data.

Is O’Rielly Irish?
Does a fox shit in your living room?

If you have any questions about he “Study Group”, bookstore, or Boulder in general, please ask away. More can definitely be said about this journey.

Let me end with one more jewel of an anecdote: When I first attended the study group, I was asked my purpose for attending. I explained to them that I wanted to hear the marxist views straight from the mouths of believers, and that I was coming from a critical and skeptical perspective looking for a little enlightenment from those living in different “reality tunnels”. I was welcomed with warm arms, and was told that since there was no dogmatism in Marxism, I am certainly welcome to offer up any criticisms I might have – the leader ended by facetiously commenting, “Just as long as you keep this in mind the whole time your here: you’re ultimately wrong. chuckle”.

Yes.. No dogmatism at all [:|]

2

This guy isn’t an actual Marxist, he’s just some liberal wanna-be sociologist who misunderstands all schools of economic thought, including Marxism. It’s pretty obvious that he has never read Kapital, as his responses don’t offer a single piece of actual economics, classical or otherwise. Debating wanna-be politicians and sociologists takes you absolutely nowhere; I suggest you move on.

3

We were socialist in the 30s, 40s, and 50s?

Conservatives, libertarians, and liberals generally agree it was not a good time to be a socialist in those times. It sure as heck was not the ruling political ideology, whatever you think of socialism. What with the tenuous relationship with the Soviet Union, almost near universal hatred of Godless communists, McCarthy trials in the fifties. Most people at that time thought even Fabian socialists like Bertrand Russell were godless demons that needed to be destroyed. Somewhat in the sixties you had more welfare statism, but Kennedy, Johnson, and all the others hated and baited the Reds to an almost fanatical degree. Ronald Reagan did too, but remember that Obama was baiting Hugo Chavez before he even got elected into office. It’s just a time honored tradition (lacking irony, while condemning other tyrants). Fighting bogeymen of communism rather than the principle or economics of socialism are two separate things.

I wonder if this guy is really 60 years old. Or if he got his idea of the fifties from watching Nick at Night and listening to Sha Na Na.

4

It really says something when I, a sixteen year old who has had no economic education or experience outside of a year and a half of on/off personal study, can tell how full of bullshit this 60-something “Marxist” really is. He proves to be a fourth-rate polemicist, and barely that. He doesn’t even really connect Event A to Event B, he just mouths off some numbers and events, and then cries out “The Buorgeois!” in the same manner a colonial American hundreds of years ago (before capitalism! We are undoubtedly reaching the height of society through Marx) would cry out “Witch!” He doesn’t even constitute as a Marxist, as already stated. He doesn’t need to develop a single reasoned thought of his own, he will be manufactured by “proletariat” society. He is nothing but the product of collective determinism.

I know one may claim my own post lacks specific point-by-point analysis and refutation-- but he himself has just about failed to push anything forward for me to refute. His email is void of any organized, substantial thought or opinion… but what do I know? I am poisoned by the bourgeoisie vice of plunder and exploitation. I exist only to strip you of your independence.

5

Welcome to the wonderful world of the fashionable left, probably one of my bigger pet peeves in life. As a Stirner fan you perhaps would be aware of such Marxist drivel starting with Marx’s “attack” on Stirner in “The German Ideology”. It would be funny if people didn’t take it so seriously and then force their cause on you.

6

Hahahahaha, I’m familiar with Boulder and am 99.9% sure I know the exact bookstore you’re talking about. :wink:

You and I have to be the only two anarcho-capitalists who have ever lived in that town.

7

Lol, I totally get the Boulder reference. That town is terrible. Nederland is worse sometimes I feel.

Coury, What an insane adventure you must have had. I thank you for sharing this. I offer no advise. His information seems easily refutable but I do not think it’s worth the effort as he will just disgard it as you say. Still it did seem like he probably spent 30 minutes of effort on the essay he wrote for you. Too bad he has no citations and most of his information is just obviously wrong.

From time to time I have come across certain types of folk who desire to live in conflict. THey latch onto a random ideology regardless of it’s fundamentals. THey hold on to it for dear life and use it as an excuse for all the bad things that have happened to him. I think this man is living in denial of reality. Whats really shocking is him comparing libertarian thought to republican right wingers. We typically are far more critical of republican’s than anyone else. Shoot, I consider most republican’s as socialists.

This is perhaps my favorite quote of his. It’s brutally revealing. It’s funny how libertarians use the phrase, “At the barrel of a gun”. We do so because we are literally forced against our will by another individual, and sometimes even literally “At the barrel of a gun”. But what he is stating is the basic laws of natural life are holding him hostage. Perhaps he would rather have Mana fall from the sky. You should ask him that.

I find it interesting how many marxists proclaim to praise the laborer but on occasion make comments like this where labor and producing is part of the problem. I know they just wish things would fall from the sky. Basically stating that the natural laws of life are just unfair! Oh Whoa is me and boohoo!! I find most libertarian’s look at their work quiet differently. I am no Randian but I agree with the part of objectivism where man has the tools in him to be a hero. My work is my life and I will do the best I can to make the most of it. To the marxist, their work is a self inflicting vampire. What a sad way to live life.

At any rate it was a nice story to share. Thanks dude. Wish I could get some local austrian’s together for a zelout austrian pow-wow in seattle! Sad that all these marxists can put together groups of that type, but in Boulder it comes as no surpise.

8

its because of capitalism and division labor, that marxists can even enjoy enough free time to type out that much garbage.

9

This introduction already suffices to cast off most of his babble… Just as Marx (as far as I have gathered from Hoppe’s and other criticism of Marxism), he confuses capitalism and mercantilism/socialism/whatever you want to call the economic system from the industrial revolution until today. Not being able to go deep enough with the criticism to distinguish between state caused and market caused evils, he will of course get the impression that the market is doing all kinds of bad things.

Perhaps this guy should actually read some of the stuff here and he will see that there is miraculously another group of people who claim that the banks should not have gotten a cent from the government. But this is of course too much to ask from a Marxist. And if he did not even read the Kapital, then he qualifies even more for the term Marxist, as I believe most contemporary Marxists, Communists, and Socilalists did not read anything but the Communist Manifesto (if at all) and their own superficial propaganda leaflets which consist of nothing more but phrases. this is at least what their argumentations inevitably leads you to think.

10

I’m well aware of the sort of drivel that spews forth from the followers of such “trendy” and shallow ideologies-- from both sides. I owe much to the Austrian School simply because it saved me from the political and ideological nihilism (and as true with most nihilism, it leads to depression). I have yet to read The German Ideology, though I have an interest in doing so. From the excerpts I have read though, it does seem like the usual Marxist tradition of calling people you disagree with “poopieheads”.

Naturally I think “libertarians” (of all colors-- minarchists and market anarchists alike) are more critical of American Conservatism/the Republican Party more than any left organization ever could be… simply because their posturing succeeds in “discrediting” us. When Glenn Beck claims to be a libertarian or when Reagan says “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism”… how else could individuals like us act?

11

Yes! Brilliant reply!

It is a frequent debate of ours regarding the nature of coercion. He claims the exploitation of the bourgeoisie is coercive much like State coercion is, but even more so because of the subtlety of surplus-labor – no one can see that it’s there cause we’re all trapped in false consciousness! I say: even if we concede, for the sake of argument, that surplus-labor is “coercive”, is there not a difference between State coercion and surplus-labor coercion? Wal-Mart, Boeing, or the local Deli don’t come and send the SLB (Surplus Labor Bureau) after you simply because you choose not to work for them. If you don’t want to work for another person, then start your own business, beg on pearl street, live in the forest, or starve to death – no one could care less. No one, other than the “coercive conspiracy of your biological construct”, is forcing you to work, to stay alive. On the other hand, once you do start working, there is a class of parasites who expropriate a fraction of the fruit of your labor, and it done blatantly, through taxation. Your boss is not the one exploiting you, neither are the stockholders of the company, or all who reap profits – it is the State, the institution of legitimized parasitism.

This reminds me of the time when we were all introducing ourselves to the study group. Once it got around to being his (author of email) turn, he explained how he’s worked for many software startups, and is currently a programmer at another software startup. I sardonically asked in reply, “So that’s who you choose to get exploited by?”, he responded with a thick straight face, “Yep.” Deep in his body, down to the very marrow, he is truly under the belief that he is being exploited, he has no “false consciousness” about it, yet still decides to get exploited – the only way to fix his sorry state of affairs is to collectivize the means of production. [:'(]

12

If you’ll allow me a small tangent in this thread, would you include active nihilism as depressing as well?

I object to most of what I read of nihilism, yet have found active nihilism to be interesting & sometimes thought provoking (mainly the stuff by S.R. Prozack, whenever I have the leisure of studying alternative ideologies, which admittedly isn’t much nowadays).

The usual hang-ups on coercion would prevent me from taking all of it seriously, though.

On topic, I have to admit the OP has far more courage than I to attempt such an under-taking. I can barley stand taking any of those guys one on one offline, let alone online; I’ve had more productive conversations with a brick wall.

The only consolation is that one person I know offline has been taking me more seriously since they’ve noticed me “gearing up” (at some point in the future) to read Marx for myself (I have Vol 1 & 3 of Kapital, and for the sake of collector’s continuity, am taking my time to find the 2nd vol so I have a matching set, I’m sure I’ll be able to sell it later on for a little bit more than what I paid for it).

If I ever had some extra money to spend on a next to worthless Poly/Sci B.A., I suppose knowledge of Marx would come in handy to “dazzle” most community college professors, lol.

The only problem is that cursory skims of anything by Marx (except wikipedia pages) reveal a completely different use of vocabulary (compared to the easier to read Austrian literature, imo), & might require for me to brush up on philosophy well before I can completely comprehend everything in the said volumes.

Then again, as mentioned elsewhere on the forums, I’m sure if I treated the volumes as a criticism against mercantilism (and not capitalism), it might be far less annoying & frustrating to read.

13

When I was in a community college program, I wrote a “research paper” called “Democracy: The Great Imposter”. The teacher was so baffled by it that she passed it around to the other staff in the department. The department assistant then told me that he wanted to pass it around to teachers in other departments. I told him that I was afraid they would give me bad marks if I took their classes.

14

What is more, if you read Marx’s Kapital, you’ll be more read than most Marxists. Lol

15

True, amusingly enough. However, I have met one Marxist that read it. He was from Chile and his dad was a communist activist.

16

^win^

17

That ‘argument’ is inflammatory and useless.

18

I think the comment is more appreciated for its irony, than for a serious attempt at an argument.

19

Interesting. I would love to read it, if you have the time to post it up somewhere.

What did the other professors & departments think of your paper?

20

Yes, please put a link up to it, I’d love to give it a read.

I do hope you cited Hoppe, a paper about Democracy would be incomplete without a touch of his insights being included.