[MD] Commie Talk and USA bashing?

[david buchanan]

Chris said:
Marx did not know of the MOQ and thus his philosophical view is flawed by S/O thinking. But I look at the basics and interpret them from a MOQ perspective. ...

dmb says:
Exactly. It would be totally arbitrary to condemn Marxism for being tainted with S/O thinking because one could condemn just about everything in the Modern West on those grounds. Capitalism isn't based on the MOQ, that's for sure. If its more dynamic than planned economies, it's just a lucky accident. Its not a deliberate choice based a philosophical position, but the dynamism is what makes it work regardless of that ignorance.

Because of the cold war propagand, most Americans don't realize that Marx was a philosopher. But anyone who cares to find out and looks at what Marx said about the alienation of the worker, for example, Marxism would support the MOQ, at least in part. One of the biggest problems with capitalism is not just that the worker is not paid very well, the problem is that it robs human beings of their time and energy. The worker spends all day doing work that is almost impossible to care about, doing work that has little or nothing to do with his interests. And if the worker does this 5 or 6 days a week, year after year, then he has spent his life not living his life. When and where does he have time for creativity and self expression and other meaningful activity? Never and nowhere. And what is sadder than spending a lifetime serving the other guy's interest?

His almost complete emphasis on material conditions as the driving force in history strikes me as fatally limited and inadequate. That insight is probably right as far as it goes but it doesn't go very far. But then again, isn't capitalism just a rival form of materialism? I doubt if there are many MOQers on Wall Street, you know?

By the way, I'm way too busy with school to be doing this so I tend to be a drive-by philosopher these days. Hope nobody takes that personally.




    

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