Marx' biggest problem is that he had no understanding of human nature.  Trump's biggest problem is that he is a greedy piece of shit.

(October 11, 2018 at 8:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Marx' biggest problem is that he had no understanding of human nature.  Trump's biggest problem is that he is a greedy piece of shit.

I would agree that Marx had some shortcomings in his understanding. He saw an economy too much as something that ran like a machine, and didn't factor in the greediness and power hungriness of individuals (and their ability to circumvent a fair and just system).

While I do consider myself a Marxist, I'm more a proponent of Marx's earlier ideas... those aimed at diminishing wage exploitation and worker alienation. At this point he was still very much a classic liberal who believed in a democratic-republican system of government. 

His later philosophy (IMO) became high on its own petard, reducing everything to the "science" of the Hegelian dialectic (or more precisely, "dialectical materialism"). His later philosophy seemed to forget that there were human beings in that shuffle, and made way too many assumptions as far as human nature was concerned. For instance, he thought that human greed would disappear when capitalism was overturned because "there would no longer be a need for it." Um... no... humans are greedy assholes, no matter what system they exist within.

(October 11, 2018 at 12:59 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: People who have a problem with capitalism see human life as something more valuable than what the market says it's worth. If we allow the free market to put a value on our human dignity, then we do not trade goods in the marketplace. WE are traded like goods IN the marketplace. If you see that as inevitable, fine. But if you see it as all fine and good, then you mustn't see much inherent value in human life to begin with.

The problem with this view is the guesture of “putting more value on humans life” often only shift the effective cheapness of human life and dignity from a location and circumstances where one has trained oneself to look and criticize, to a different location or environment which one has conditioned oneself to ignore or whitewash.

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(October 11, 2018 at 8:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Marx' biggest problem is that he had no understanding of human nature.  Trump's biggest problem is that he is a greedy piece of shit.

Marx actually has a great deal more understanding of human nature than his contemporaries.

There are two ways to evaluate one’s understanding of human nature:

1. predicting accurately what humans will do

2. Predicting accurately what humans will believe what humans will do.

Marx got the second nailed to a more precise degree than perhaps any other single individual in human history. Where he failed is he thought he was getting the 1st, not the 2nd, right.

(October 11, 2018 at 8:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Marx' biggest problem is that he had no understanding of human nature.  Trump's biggest problem is that he is a greedy piece of shit.

Human nature, insofar as it exists, is not immutable.  We have the intellectual capacity to guide and alter our natures.

(October 11, 2018 at 8:21 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

Oh no Vul the right wingers like Beta Fail know what Communism really is because some right wing mouth piece said so or  they heard some vain quotation on a T shirt . Because actually reading Marx is hard.