The Truth About Karl Marx (Stefan Molyneux)

[eye_of_the_storm]

[ralis]

 

 

 

You are posting this without comment? Have you read Marx?

[Apech]

...'he was the only one who could leave the house because he had the last pair of trousers' ...

 

I suppose we are being asked to choose here between (perhaps) th emost radical and world changing philosopher of the 19 century and some bald guy on the internet. I would prefer to read academic analysis which stands up to scrutiny, for instance:

 

 

Nevertheless we remain with the question of whether Marx thought that communism could be commended on other moral grounds. There are certainly reasons to believe that Marx did not want to make moral assessments at all, for example, in the Communist Manifesto he writes that “communism abolishes … all religion and all morality, rather than constituting them on a new basis”. However, it may be that Marx here is taking morality in a rather narrow sense. On a broad understanding, in which morality, or perhaps better to say ethics, is concerning with the idea of living well, it seems that communism can be assessed favourably in this light. One compelling argument is that Marx's career simply makes no sense unless we can attribute such a belief to him. But beyond this we can be brief in that the considerations adduced in section 2 above apply again. Communism clearly advances human flourishing, in Marx's view. The only reason for denying that, in Marx's vision, it would amount to a good society is a theoretical antipathy to the word ‘good’. And here the main point is that, in Marx's view, communism would not be brought about by high-minded benefactors of humanity. Quite possibly his determination to retain this point of difference between himself and the Utopian socialists led him to disparage the importance of morality to a degree that goes beyond the call of theoretical necessity.

 

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

[ralis]

...'he was the only one who could leave the house because he had the last pair of trousers' ...

 

I suppose we are being asked to choose here between (perhaps) th emost radical and world changing philosopher of the 19 century and some bald guy on the internet. I would prefer to read academic analysis which stands up to scrutiny, for instance:

 

 

 

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

 

The person commenting in the video believes in a Libertarian stateless society. Unevolved humans are not capable of such a system.

 

I prefer academic analysis.

 

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html

Edited January 24, 2014 by ralis

[Apech]

I see he says of himself : Stefan Molyneux has been an actor, comedian, gold-panner, graduate student, and software entrepreneur.

 

 

I think that what comes across in his presentation which relies on asking us to rely not on someone's words or ideas but on their appearance ... or perhaps how they conduct themselves, is that it is more a piece of theatre than a proper argument. My objection to this is that Marx (and indeed all those living in the then European developed nations) was subject to the vicissitudes of the prevailing economic and social conditions. These were generated mostly by people becoming slaves to the machines of manufacturing and being forced to live in intolerable conditions. His objections to religion were mainly based, as I understand it, on the fact that the priests and clergy of Christianity did not challenge this (apart from a very few) and offered only the sugar pill of heaven when you die (provided you were good and did not rock the boat). So it was not so much that he wished to wrench the moral high ground from the preachers - it was that he wished to present the future possibility that human being could live in a way which did not involve subjugation or alienation. As he saw that the source of this alienation was about ownership of the means of production which turned people into cogs in the wheels of production, he came up with a model for society which involved common ownership.

 

I think it is very hard for any American being brought up on endless cold war propaganda about communism to actually understand what it is ... since practically the only bit of information which people are told is 'they don't believe in God'. Even this is not totally true since there is a very strong Socialist movement based on Methodism in England for instance.

[soaring crane]

Do I understand this correctly? A "bald guy on the internet" who is somewhat of a comedian and actor, read a book that was written by one of the most notoriously neoliberal writers on the conservative book market, and then felt self-assured enough to create a video entitled "the truth about Karl Marx"?

 

Is that about right?

 

And somebody actually takes this seriously? I think *that* might be the problem right there.

 

Perhaps the relevant question is, "has Paul Johnson read Marx?"

Edited January 24, 2014 by soaring crane

[Bubbles]

You are posting this without comment? Have you read Marx?

 

Certainly not and that's the problem.

A very few people have actually read Marx, have read several academic analysis about him. So posting something like ' the truth about Marx' that is like saying I know something about

Fourier series or Bach cantatas without having actually studied them.

This is BS.

[Taomeow]

Well, I had to read a helluva lot of Marx, it was a compulsory part of my education. I found him intolerably boring. The "bald guy" must have been attracted to this particular trait which they seem to share -- I started watching but he spent upwards of two and a half minutes in the beginning talking about how a fat person writing dietary books is not to be trusted -- OK, fine, I get your point, but it can be made in 2.3 seconds and then friggin' move the ef on already! In 2 and a half minutes I could have watched ten Funniest Cats episodes. You've got to be kidding me.

 

Marx, all other considerations being left aside (e.g. that he was a high ranking member of a Freemason lodge most heavily infiltrated by the Illuminati; that Friedrich Engels who was wealthy, and also an Illuminati, financially supported -- one might say "kept" -- him and his family, and the last pair of trousers strikes me as confabulatory -- both Karl and his very pretty wife were sharp dressers as I recall from the pictures I've seen), as I was saying, Marx was an exceedingly boring writer. No way in hell he could have ignited any revolutions with either his analysis or his charisma without the money of Krupp and I.G. Farben and Chemical cartels and the rest of them Jesuit Illuminati fueling this particular bogus fire with real human sacrifices...

[Apech]

 

'Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

 

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

 

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.'

 

 

Not bad for a well dressed but dull writer with a pretty wife.

[Taomeow]

Yes, this is one of his more fortunate passages -- which is why "religion is the opium of the people" became proverbial, they chanted this line in Russia when they were applying "revolutionary terror" to the churches and monasteries, blowing them up and shooting or sending to Siberia the priests and monks and believers in god and nonbelievers in Marx alike. Obviously practical applications of the above-cited theory were rather creative.

 

But have you tried Das Kapital? I had nightmares featuring this thick as a brick tome which I had to study for the exam in "Marxist-Leninist economics." It just refused to take root in my mind, perhaps because I was as familiar first hand with all other creative applications of the theory to practice as with the above opium bit. I remember the night before the exam when my mind literally stalled, getting stuck on "one sheep equals two axes, two sheep equal four axes," the brilliant formula that explained how the trading of goods works if you don't look to profit. Fair and square, one sheep equals two axes, but somehow it was repeated with such pomp and fanfare that it broke my spirit, and I tried to cheat on the exam, got caught, and got forgiven because I was 18 and the teacher was sleazy, he put his paw on my knee and... anyway, that's my personal Marx, I may be prejudiced.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Taomeow

[ralis]

A couple of his books are free on Kindle.

 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=karl%20marx&sprefix=karl+%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Akarl%20marx

[Apech]

Yes, this is one of his more fortunate passages -- which is why "religion is the opium of the people" became proverbial, they chanted this line in Russia when they were applying "revolutionary terror" to the churches and monasteries, blowing them up and shooting or sending to Siberia the priests and monks and believers in god and nonbelievers in Marx alike. Obviously practical applications of the above-cited theory were rather creative.

Yes I agree the words were misused to allow atrocities ... but I think that's why the whole quote is rarely seen. People usually just trot out the opiate part and miss the rest.

 

But have you tried Das Kapital? I had nightmares featuring this thick as a brick tome which I had to study for the exam in "Marxist-Leninist economics." It just refused to take root in my mind, perhaps because I was as familiar first hand with all other creative applications of the theory to practice as with the above opium bit. I remember the night before the exam when my mind literally stalled, getting stuck on "one sheep equals two axes, two sheep equal four axes," the brilliant formula that explained how the trading of goods works if you don't look to profit. Fair and square, one sheep equals two axes, but somehow it was repeated with such pomp and fanfare that it broke my spirit, and I tried to cheat on the exam, got caught, and got forgiven because I was 18 and the teacher was sleazy, he put his paw on my knee and... anyway, that's my personal Marx, I may be prejudiced.

 

I've read bits of Kapital and I agree its as dry as ditch water. But it is a book on economic theory and anything taught as compulsory in school is hard to get through. Even Shakespeare which I now love reading - when I was taught it in school was terribly boring and more or less incomprehensible.

 

I don't know about the Illuminati business but I still regard Marx's reaction to the suffering he saw around him to be admirable and that he correctly identified the causes. You could say his solution, in application, was something of a disaster (to say the least) but I think that in part he failed to factor in the ability of humans to twist everything towards power grabbing and personal revenge.

 

Even today if you go to some countries and you see high infant mortality, low literacy rates, starvation wages and people bound into work more or less as slaves - side by side with the uber-rich who own everything - something in your heart must cry out to alleviate the material conditions for these people and also to change the system so that they can reap the benefits to which they are naturally entitled, restore their dignity and so on. For many years the alternative presented was the various models of Marxism. Now we're beyond that but lack any new models really for a better and just life for all.

 

It seems to me that many people, rather than trying to perhaps extract the best from Marx want to perpetuate cold war rhetoric as if the dichotomy is still East vs. West ... probably because they feel safer with this than facing up to the world as it really is today.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Apech

[soaring crane]

Lenin never read Das Kapital, either, as I understand it. They used the Manifesto, which Marx wrote while trying to make some waves in the competitive pool of philosophers back in the day, and may well have never really read it, either.

 

Das Kapital is a little less dry in German, but still way too thick for this birdbrain.

 

[Brian]

I thought Marx was deep and spot-on when I was 15. Now I wonder whether he really believed what he wrote and how his positions might have changed in light of the historical events which followed. Overall, though, I hold little respect for him.

[SonOfTheGods]

Stefan Molyneux has an Agenda.

 

Just a different flavour of Agenda, but still, an Agenda, nevertheless.

[Apech]

[thelerner]

He mentions Paul Johnson's book 'Intellectuals'. Good book, I've never read a bad one by Mr. Johnson, he is my favorite historian to read. Great writer. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Johnson/e/B000AQ3F7Y

 

Last year I was reading his book on Socrates. Fascinating man and time, rightfully immortalized this wayward Athenian. Very interesting how he didn't take all of the historical writings about Socrates at face value.

[Apech]

He mentions Paul Johnson's book 'Intellectuals'. Good book, I've never read a bad one by Mr. Johnson, he is my favorite historian to read. Great writer. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Johnson/e/B000AQ3F7Y

 

Last year I was reading his book on Socrates. Fascinating man and time, rightfully immortalized this wayward Athenian. Very interesting how he didn't take all of the historical writings about Socrates at face value.

 

 

He's not exactly politically neutral. He was a lefty then became a Thatcherite and a right wing polemicist ... so any book he writes about Marx isn't going to be unbiased by his own views. So I can quite understand why the video guy was quoting him.

[thelerner]

He's not exactly politically neutral. He was a lefty then became a Thatcherite and a right wing polemicist ... so any book he writes about Marx isn't going to be unbiased by his own views. So I can quite understand why the video guy was quoting him.

Really, I didn't know he was very right wing, and haven't found his books to be so, at least the ones I read. In the book Intellectuals he was very critical of Marx, particularly focusing on the hypocrisy of his life. Nasty to his wife and kinda humorously nasty to his faithful man servant who'd do his bidding and end up continually in jail with no one to bale him out.

[Apech]

Really, I didn't know he was very right wing, and haven't found his books to be so, at least the ones I read. In the book Intellectuals he was very critical of Marx, particularly focusing on the hypocrisy of his life. Nasty to his wife and kinda humorously nasty to his faithful man servant who'd do his bidding and end up continually in jail with no one to bale him out.

 

 

I didn't watch the whole of the OP vid but it was pretty clear that this is exactly where he was going. Maybe he should do another video about pedophile Catholic priests and born again preachers and their sex and money scandals and see where that takes him. But then again I don't really see the point. So Marx may have been a bit of shit in his personal life - I don't really care. And if this means there was a flaw in his philosophy then tell us what this flaw is. That's the point for me.

[thelerner]

I didn't watch the whole of the OP vid but it was pretty clear that this is exactly where he was going. Maybe he should do another video about pedophile Catholic priests and born again preachers and their sex and money scandals and see where that takes him. But then again I don't really see the point. So Marx may have been a bit of shit in his personal life - I don't really care. And if this means there was a flaw in his philosophy then tell us what this flaw is. That's the point for me.

I didn't watch the whole thing either. As a theory Marxism sounds nice. One hopes, if there's a heaven it tends to be more Marxist then capitalistic! It just doesn't work well for humans, not at this point in our civilization anyway. Historically its led to nasty dictatorships and repression. It shouldn't have too, but that's the way its played out the last 80 years.

 

Even in a small pure lots, like early Israeli Kibbutz's, a very pure form of communism. Where the most extreme had group government, group sharing, even children raised in a very collective manner. They rarely survived 2 generations, it was too much group control (less rigid Kibbutzes survived). People crave autonomy.

[eye_of_the_storm]

I didn't watch the whole of the OP vid but it was pretty clear that this is exactly where he was going. Maybe he should do another video about pedophile Catholic priests and born again preachers and their sex and money scandals and see where that takes him. But then again I don't really see the point. So Marx may have been a bit of shit in his personal life - I don't really care. And if this means there was a flaw in his philosophy then tell us what this flaw is. That's the point for me.

 

Apech is pedophilia absent from Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and Secular institutions? Why just focus on Catholic?

 

What is your bias?

 

I think it is an injustice to ignore such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2014 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Apech]

 

Apech is pedophilia absent from Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and Secular institutions? Why just focus on Catholic?

 

What is your bias?

 

I think it is an injustice to ignore such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No I don't suppose so. That was not my point. The guy in the vid said that the intellectuals like Marx, being on the science 'bandwagon' (whatever that is) tried to replace the moral authority of the church (to paraphrase) and then attacked Marx's personal behaviour as a critique. So I was just pointing out you could do the same to other so called moral authorities.