Noteworthy News

[Jackalope]

I've gone from "Ayn Rand is insightful" in my 20s to "Karl Marx wasn't wrong about a few things" in my 50s. I was an idiot back then. I'm still an idiot, but I was back then too.

[Silver]

I've gone from "Ayn Rand is insightful" in my 20s to "Karl Marx wasn't wrong about a few things" in my 50s. I was an idiot back then. I'm still an idiot, but I was back then too.

The real genius doesn't consider herself a genius.

[Silver]

The US Navy have launched a ‘gender neutral’ submarine and bigots are losing their minds

Pink News

[brewer]

The US Navy have launched a ‘gender neutral’ submarine and bigots are losing their minds

Pink News

It will be interesting to see to what degree the 'experiment' works.

[Ivan Denisovich]

When I mentioned "nobility", I was talking about how the adherents believed that what they adhered to would actually produce a better world for all. They thought that assigning production to the people, or trusting magnates to do the right thing following the money, would in the end in both cases result in a better society for all.

I can agree with such take though one must note that such "nobility" could also be ascribed to nazis or khmers who too believed that their actions will result in a better world.

That's clearly not the case in either instance because both systems ignore the basic urge of greed.

Of course, after both systems are shown flawed, apologists show up to explain why this or that experiment (Soviet Union, Gilded Age in America) went wrong, not because the ideology was wrong, but "the people didn't implement it right".

This ignores the fact that in both cases, greed -- for power or money or control -- is for better or worse an essential human quality.

It can't be really said that communism failed because of greed as it was never built nor there was real conception of what should be done to build it and how it would look in precise terms. Something that is just vague dream or perhaps messianic promise can't really fail because there is no possibility of achieving it in the first place.

[Ivan Denisovich]

I've gone from "Ayn Rand is insightful" in my 20s to "Karl Marx wasn't wrong about a few things" in my 50s.  I was an idiot back then.  I'm still an idiot, but I was back then too.

It was I believe Zygmunt Bauman* who said that Marx thought was a crappy thing to build society on but excellent vehicle for criticism of capitalism and it is take that I agree with.

*It can be found in Socialism the Active Utopia if I recall correctly.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I can agree with such take though one must note that such "nobility" could also be ascribed to nazis or khmers who too believed that their actions will result in a better world.

Sure, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We all see ourselves as noble, or fighting for the right cause, or what-have-you. Radical capitalists and Leninists both saw themselves in that light, at first. Nazis, Greens, CCP, and so on, every party sees their mission as "noble". That doesn't mean it is, obviously.

My point is just that radical capitalism and Marxism/Leninism both forgot a fact of basic human nature ... a fact which made both systems unrealistic.

It can't be really said that communism failed because of greed as it was never built nor there was real conception of what should be done to build it and how it would look in precise terms. Something that is just vague dream or perhaps messianic promise can't really fail because there is no possibility of achieving it in the first place.

Right, but the fact that it fell to its death trying to crawl out of the cradle speaks to my point. Even though no perfect Communism was ever attained, those trying to bring it about had their plans and doctrine fall afoul of human greed all the same. And I think greed was a big part.

[Ivan Denisovich]

Sure, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We all see ourselves as noble, or fighting for the right cause, or what-have-you. Radical capitalists and Leninists both saw themselves in that light, at first. Nazis, Greens, CCP, and so on, every party sees their mission as "noble". That doesn't mean it is, obviously.

Agreed.

My point is just that radical capitalism and Marxism/Leninism both forgot a fact of basic human nature ... a fact which made both systems unrealistic.

I won't argue about capitalism but Marxism-Leninism tries to build communism weren't merely unrealistic but I would say unachievable and in direct conflict with interests of Soviet state. Remember that under communism state was supposed to - in words of Friedrich Engels - wither away. [Link talks about socialism but terms socialism and communism were used interchangeably even by Marx]. Lenin and Trotsky would perhaps be content with it as ideologues (though I deem it doubtful as one does not organize putsch to leave reins of power to others) but thousands of apparatchiks? In Marxist-Leninist faith communism served the same function as afterlife in traditional religions - that of a reward of which existence scripture assures you but one that is forever beyond reach.

Right, but the fact that it fell to its death trying to crawl out of the cradle speaks to my  point. Even though no perfect Communism was ever attained, those trying to bring it about had their plans and doctrine fall afoul of human greed all the same. And I think greed was a big part.

Not really. It's not that perfect communism was never attained, it's that no communism at all was attained and even possibility of building it existed only in minds of faithful. I also disagree with greed being causative factor in failure of building it. Look what Trotsky wrote on the subject of communist (socialist) man and society:

[...]All forms of life, such as the cultivation of land, the planning of human habitations, the building of theaters, the methods of socially educating children, the solution of scientific problems, the creation of new styles, will finally engross all and everyone. People will divide into ‘parties’ over the question of a new gigantic canal, or the distribution of oases in the Sahara (such a question will exist too), over the regulation of the weather and the climate, over a new theater, over chemical hypotheses, over two competing tendencies in music, and over a best system of sports. Such parties will not be poisoned by greed of class or caste. All will be equally interested in the success of the whole. The struggle will have a purely ideological character. It will have no running after profits, it will have nothing mean, no betrayals, no bribery, none of the things that form the soul of competition in a society divided into classes. But this will in no way hinder the struggle from being absorbing, dramatic and passionate. And as all problems in a Socialist society – the problems of life which formerly were solved spontaneously and automatically, and the problems of art which were in the custody of special priestly castes – will become the property of all people, one can say with certainty that collective interests and passions, and individual competition will have the widest scope and the most unlimited opportunity.

In a struggle so disinterested and tense, which will take place in a culture whose foundations are steadily rising, the human personality, with its invaluable basic trait of continual discontent, will grow and become polished at all its points. In truth, we have no reason to fear that there will be a decline of individuality or an impoverishment of art in a Socialist society ...

It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. All the arts – literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.

To me it look like religious promises of earthly paradise and such thing couldn't be built not because human greed but because it's nothing more than pipe dream and different version of opiate that was served to the masses.

[Nanny]

Electronic pagers explode across Lebanon, Syria.

https://www.boston.com/news/world-news/2...hp_primary

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously across Lebanon and in parts of Syria on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, including members of the militant group Hezbollah and a girl, and wounding the Iranian ambassador, government and Hezbollah officials said.

Officials pointed the finger at Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack that wounded more than 2,700 people at a time of rising tensions across the Lebanon border. The Israeli military declined to comment.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Electronic pagers explode across Lebanon, Syria.

https://www.boston.com/news/world-news/2...hp_primary

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously across Lebanon and in parts of Syria on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, including members of the militant group Hezbollah and a girl, and wounding the Iranian ambassador, government and Hezbollah officials said.

Officials pointed the finger at Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack that wounded more than 2,700 people at a time of rising tensions across the Lebanon border. The Israeli military declined to comment.

More likely to be faulty pagers than an Israeli attack.

Boru