Marxism, what you got?

[The Grand Nudger]

He believed that crime was a symptom of conflict in class based societies - and it's certainly true that people have managed to naturally behave ourselves since a great many of the laws he would have been familiar with and would have had in mind were struck down. Today we contend that global poverty drives global terrorism - and marx would probably tell us he told us so.

[vulcanlogician]

He believed that crime was a symptom of conflict in class based societies - and it's certainly true that people have managed to naturally behave ourselves since a great many of the laws he would have been familiar with and would have had in mind were struck down.  Today we contend that global poverty drives global terrorism - and marx would probably tell us he told us so.

I agree that crime is a symptom of class struggle.

However, I disagree that if you do away with classes, you do away with crime. Same thing with the government disappearing when communism is established. I think Marx got that wrong too.

In short, I consider myself a Marxist (because I think Marx had good criticisms). But I don't consider myself a communist. 

Even the type of communist who says, "Mao and the Soviets did it wrong."-- while these communists may be correct that Mao/Lenin did it wrong... I still think communism is unrealistic (as Marx envisioned it). People are determined by more than their social conditions. Social conditions are a huge determining factor, yes, but Marx overestimated how much of a factor it is.

[Ahriman]

He believed that crime was a symptom of conflict in class based societies - and it's certainly true that people have managed to naturally behave ourselves since a great many of the laws he would have been familiar with and would have had in mind were struck down.  Today we contend that global poverty drives global terrorism - and marx would probably tell us he told us so.

I agree that crime is a symptom of class struggle.

However, I disagree that if you do away with classes, you do away with crime. Same thing with the government disappearing when communism is established. I think Marx got that wrong too.

In short, I consider myself a Marxist (because I think Marx had good criticisms). But I don't consider myself a communist. 

Even the type of communist who says, "Mao and the Soviets did it wrong."-- while these communists may be correct that Mao/Lenin did it wrong... I still think communism is unrealistic (as Marx envisioned it). People are determined by more than their social conditions. Social conditions are a huge determining factor, yes, but Marx overestimated how much of a factor it is.

Class struggle? Some people are just bad, and enjoy committing crime.

[The Grand Nudger]

I agree that crime is a symptom of class struggle.

However, I disagree that if you do away with classes, you do away with crime.

Probably depends on the society - in abolishing slavery, for example, huge chunks of criminal law were wiped off the books and this very much did mean that all that crime was done away with.

A compassionate person might say -but those were bad laws hurting good people who committed no real crime...but that's a counterfactual world argument.  I give him the benefit of the doubt here when I'm being serious.  He believed that we would one day violently rebel - so he knew we weren't saints.  Surveying a class based society with laws powerfully aligned to class interests and feeling that this would get worse and contending that doing away with the rule of law would do away with crime, in those circumstances, would be very meaningfully true.  

Same thing with the government disappearing when communism is established. I think Marx got that wrong too.

Yeah, more like aspirational goals, right?  

In short, I consider myself a Marxist (because I think Marx had good criticisms). But I don't consider myself a communist. 

Even the type of communist who says, "Mao and the Soviets did it wrong."-- while these communists may be correct that Mao/Lenin did it wrong... I still think communism is unrealistic (as Marx envisioned it). People are determined by more than their social conditions. Social conditions are a huge determining factor, yes, but Marx overestimated how much of a factor it is.

I think a person might be in such a precarious state that their social conditions are overriding.  Those would have been the kinds of downtrodden cogs rising up against their capitalist masters in his idea of a better world.

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Class struggle? Some people are just bad, and enjoy committing crime.

Of the number of people currently imprisoned in the us, what percentage do they account for, if you had to guess? On a fundamental level, having the laws doesn't stop them - and getting rid of the laws wouldn't make anyone who wasn't already one of them do whatever shitty thing they do. The rule of law, and notions of some people™ just being bad, are more often tools for class oppression than objective assessments of human nature or necessity.

[Ahriman]

Of the number of people currently imprisoned in the us, what percentage do they account for, if you had to guess? On a fundamental level, having the laws doesn't stop them - and getting rid of the laws wouldn't make anyone who wasn't already one of them do whatever shitty thing they do. The rule of law, and notions of some people™ just being bad, are more often tools for class oppression than objective assessments of human nature or necessity.

Nearly all of them.

[vulcanlogician]

I agree that crime is a symptom of class struggle.

However, I disagree that if you do away with classes, you do away with crime. Same thing with the government disappearing when communism is established. I think Marx got that wrong too.

In short, I consider myself a Marxist (because I think Marx had good criticisms). But I don't consider myself a communist. 

Even the type of communist who says, "Mao and the Soviets did it wrong."-- while these communists may be correct that Mao/Lenin did it wrong... I still think communism is unrealistic (as Marx envisioned it). People are determined by more than their social conditions. Social conditions are a huge determining factor, yes, but Marx overestimated how much of a factor it is.

Class struggle? Some people are just bad, and enjoy committing crime.

Even if what you say is 100% true, that doesn't mean that crime isn't a symptom of class struggle.

Let's say someone claims: sneezing is a symptom of allergies. It wouldn't challenge the claim to say "dusty rooms make people sneeze."

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Of the number of people currently imprisoned in the us, what percentage do they account for, if you had to guess? On a fundamental level, having the laws doesn't stop them - and getting rid of the laws wouldn't make anyone who wasn't already one of them do whatever shitty thing they do. The rule of law, and notions of some people™ just being bad, are more often tools for class oppression than objective assessments of human nature or necessity.

Nearly all of them.

Wow. How did you come up with that estimate? I can't tell you how much I disagree.

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I mean, really, Ahri, give it some thought. People in poverty are much, much more likely to commit crime. What about poverty makes people "like" to commit crime?

[The Architect Of Fate]

Marx and Engels were referring to the demise of ‘the State’ as a concept, not to any particular state. The signs you mention would seem to be indicative of either a change in the way a State is managed, or increasing the power of that State. If the US were to become a theocratic dictatorship, for example, or a corporate fascism, it would still be a State.

I'm saying those are the demise of the state as people have less confidence in it as a whole. I don't really see this as merely changing states

Worldwide, the concept of a State seems stronger than ever. Marx’s notion that society would evolve to the point where laws could be done away with (because people would naturally want to behave themselves without coercion) seems as far-fetched as ever.

I must disagree I think people are becoming less about state coercion and more about pro civic behavior 

And social programmes are socialist in essence, if not in name. This can’t be sensibly denied.

Boru

Social programs neither started with socialism nor are they their essence so it can be sensibly denied. Unless you're going to tell me the Fascist states were socialists because they had social programs or The Romans were Socialists because they gave out free bread.

[Ahriman]

Class struggle? Some people are just bad, and enjoy committing crime.

Even if what you say is 100% true, that doesn't mean that crime isn't a symptom of class struggle.

Let's say someone claims: sneezing is a symptom of allergies. It wouldn't challenge the claim to say "dusty rooms make people sneeze."

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Nearly all of them.

Wow. How did you come up with that estimate? I can't tell you how much I disagree.

Most people in jail/prison, deserve to be there, for being criminally minded.

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People in poverty are much, much more likely to commit crime

If that were the case, homeless people would commit more crime than anyone else, and that's not true at all.

[vulcanlogician]

Most people in jail/prison, deserve to be there, for being criminally minded.

Read my question above about poverty and crime.

People who live in poverty are way more likely to commit crime. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that suggest that maybe these folks never had a decent shot at education or stable living, and THAT was a determining factor?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well that would be convenient, given how many of them didn't commit the crimes they were sentenced for. We'd need something to keep them locked up on, criminally minded is as good as any other thing and probably an accurate reflection of what marx was talking about with the relationship between crimes and coercion. Police depts were very recently explaining how they'd been locking people up on the Super Negro Theory of Resisting Arrest, for example. Ridiculous, wrong, but very much an actual thing they actually taught leos and very much a thing that lead to incarceration. Getting rid of that would get rid of all of that crime, wouldn't it?