It essentially proposes that workers should collectively own the means of production.

Unfortunately, it is no longer relevant today, as all the production in the world cannot even create enough of a down payment to reduce the amount of debt in circulation, it can only conceivably create enough 'wealth' to marginally reduce the rate at which this debt increases.

While this is completely insane, virtually no-one in the world understands this, and some very powerful people wish to keep this system in place, consequently, the wheel keeps turning no matter how daft things get. Increasingly almost every aspect of culture and society is dominated by, or created for, the purpose of keeping this social order in place.

It essentially proposes that workers should collectively own the means of production.

Unfortunately, it is no longer relevant today, as all the production in the world cannot even create enough of a down payment to reduce the amount of debt in circulation, it can only conceivably create enough 'wealth' to marginally reduce the rate at which this debt increases.

While this is completely insane, virtually no-one in the world understands this, and some very powerful people wish to keep this system in place, consequently, the wheel keeps turning no matter how daft things get. Increasingly almost every aspect of culture and society is dominated by, or created for, the purpose of keeping this social order in place.

So do you think a Marxist revolutionary party of the masses would try and enforce the debt of finance capitalists on itself?

One thing that does get on my tits is the way you get this American right wing conspiracy stuff that comes out with total bullshit about Marxism and socialism. From the sort of people who think poor people having free access to medical treatment is communism.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
I don't pretend to understand Marx and have always intended but never got round to sitting down and understanding him properly (but that's something of a mission) so this could be wrong, but as I kinda think I understand it Marx believed capitalism was necessary in order to achieve the necessary productive forces but would ultimately collapse under its own contradictions. He certainlly never anticpated revolution somewherelike Russia because in theory the revolution should occur in the most advanced capitalist economies. It has been argued he's more relevant today than ever exactly because of the way the current system is falling apart because of the actions of the people who control it. I do not, however, pretend to understand all the ins and outs and certainly wouldn't get into a debate about it.

One thing that does get on my tits is the way you get this American right wing conspiracy stuff that comes out with total bullshit about Marxism and socialism. From the sort of people who think poor people having free access to medical treatment is communism.

The crisis of capitalism is accompanied by a crisis of bourgeois thought: philosophy, economics, morality – all are in a state of ferment. In place of the earlier optimism that stated confidently that capitalism had solved all its problems, there is an all-pervading mood of gloom. Not so long ago, Gordon Brown confidently proclaimed “the end of boom and bust”. After the crash of 2008 he was forced to eat his words.

Guevarista wrote: It's totally impossible to have a Marxist revolutionary party today, or completely futile, because the means of production are owned multinationally. For example, in Britain, how would the workers seize back control over the means of production when the economy isn't driven by local or even national production? This would have need to have happened a long time ago.

Of course it isn't impossible, many exist in embryonic stages, in fact there has never been a more appropriate time, nor a time in which it is more feasible than today!
There is the potential to eliminate poverty in the UK with the waste alone!

So you think because the economy is directed and controlled by the aims of profit and capitalists, people can never control it?

I look at that slightly differently, we must control it!

Please read further:
www.marxist.com/historical-materialism-study-guide.htm

Anarcho-syndicalism is about ownership of the means of production in a modern society because each worker has 1 equal share and 1 vote with no plc traded shares. Marxism is about government ownership of everything with the illusion that the people somehow have a share in it.

andyh wrote:
So Marxism requires sorcery?

Guevarista wrote:
Yes I agree it certainly should.

I think it's important to remember that back in the day there was a big tension between reform vs revolution. On one hand, agitation could force the boss class to throw bones to the working class in terms of stuff like healthcare, restricted working hours, employee rights etc,. This obviously improves people's lives tangibly so is not a bad thing. On the other hand, placating the working class helps to maintain the system and can been seen as a distraction from totally overturning it. As people become a bit more satisfied with their lot, it douses the revolutionary fire. It can be seen as rather misguided, but I am aware some Marxists have in the past advocated voting Tory in the belief their policies would help speed the revolution.

What really concerns me is the way 'the elite' have managed to have their cake and eat it for the last couple of decades. Ordinary people have been so effectively guided to become atomised aspirational individuals without any sense of their collective power and so easily turned on each other - 'chavs', benefits scroungers, beggars - I obvuiously approve of the way things like racism and homophobia have become far less acceptable, but it has to be remembered though these things greatly benefit individuals (so are positive - every gay man free to express his sexuality without getting his head kicked in is a step forward) they do not cghallenge the status quo. Gay liberation simply means the pink pound as far as the system is concerned - contrary to wild-eyed bullshit about 'the homosexual agenda' making us all gay or whatever shite you get on the DIF, it doesn't matter one jot to 'the elite' (and plenty of them are gay so they benefit fron being able to be themselves too). A black man being president doesn't change shit. A black lesbian in a wheelchair being prime minster wouldn't change shit. It's class that has become invisible. And the working class have been bamboozled into thinking they're all middle class because they have an education, a mortgage and a bunch of cheap techmnology made by slaves in China. As they struggle to pay their bills and watch the services they benefited from being stripped away. Like how it's now inevitable you'll be up to your neck in debt to go to Uni - I went when it was part grant, part loan and had little debt. My sister went when it was all grant and you could sign on during the summer. It wasn't that long ago. Worse still, you need that education more than ever to have any hope of getting a halfway decent job. Whereas not that long ago you could get a free education but still manage ok without it. Margaret Thatcher has a lot to answer for. Very clever, very evil.

And we have forgotten how much has been taken away. We are going backwards And we're just letting it happen - we no longer have a sense of class and a sense of organising against the boss class. And people like Alex Jones are neither use nor ornament in that department. Like I said, I haven't got to grips with Marx, but I'd still say he's probably a lot more useful than someone like Jones.

If you even say the words 'Communism' or 'Marxism' to average, everyday people in Britain, they will either have no idea what you're on about, or else they have been programmed to respond negatively.

I

Worse still, you need that education more than ever to have any hope of getting a halfway decent job. Whereas not that long ago you could get a free education but still manage ok without it. Margaret Thatcher has a lot to answer for. Very clever, very evil.

Ordinary people have been so effectively guided to become atomised aspirational individuals without any sense of their collective power and so easily turned on each other - 'chavs', benefits scroungers, beggars.

"If it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effect of coercive institutions, then, of course, it will follow that a decent society should maximise the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realised...Now a federated, decentralised system of free associations, incorporating economic as well as other social institutions, would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism; and it seems to me that this is the appropriate form of social organisation for an advanced technological society, in which human beings do not have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in the machine. There is no longer any social necessity for human beings to be treated as mechanical elements in the productive process; that can be overcome and we must overcome it by a society of freedom and free association, in which the creative urge that I consider intrinsic to human nature, will in fact be able to realise itself in whatever way it will".
.

dogsmilk wrote:
The needing an education aspect is because machines are replacing human labour.
Whats actually specifically in demand is top level vocational qualifications as degrees become worthless to business as it moves towards ever rapidly expanding efficiency and technology, universities are simply not keeping up.
The IT business wants people with IT qualifications.

dogsmilk wrote: I pretty much agree with all of your post, but this is the key point. People have been steadily trained to associate their standard of living with the products of consumer society, not community, or family, or the concept of working for themselves. They actually come to value the baubles that are produced by the international multinational production system at least as much as anything else, yet this is the system that is enslaving them. But they lack the co-ordinates and understanding to really comprehend how society has changed. So you have a combination of this, and one of the arguments that Chomsky puts forward:



"If it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effect of coercive institutions, then, of course, it will follow that a decent society should maximise the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realised...Now a federated, decentralised system of free associations, incorporating economic as well as other social institutions, would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism; and it seems to me that this is the appropriate form of social organisation for an advanced technological society, in which human beings do not have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in the machine. There is no longer any social necessity for human beings to be treated as mechanical elements in the productive process; that can be overcome and we must overcome it by a society of freedom and free association, in which the creative urge that I consider intrinsic to human nature, will in fact be able to realise itself in whatever way it will".

So people are unable to engage in creative work, because the economic order doesn't really require it from the majority of people, and then they're encouraged to fill the dissatisfaction that this drudgery creates with consumer products. Surprisingly, this doesn't make people happy (leaving aside the issue of the fact that it also necessitates the creation of an ever-increasing underclass)! But it's not supposed to because these products are supposed to be disposable, they're supposed to either break or become obsolete, and people are supposed to want to buy more. Which is exactly what happens.

andyh wrote:
Actually Andy, you just touched on something else that also really pisses me off.

Yes I agree.

But don't forget that for many bog standard jobs you're getting people with degress going for them. Like people with degrees are finding themselves in call centres. If you haven't got that degree, you lose out to those that have.

But also, education as in learning as an end in itself is increasingly not valued. There's nothing wrong with people learning relevant skills, but education should be about a hell of a lot more than what business wants. Education should also be an end in itself.

A few years ago, the adult education prospectus for my local college was like a telephone book. These days it's little more than a thin booklet. Learning has become about what's good for employment prospects and is increasingly inaccessible unless you're forking out big money. Nobody cares about learning just for the sake of learning, just for your own satisfaction and intellectual development.