As a born experimenter the temptation laid before me is all but irresistible. The reason this is so is because of the predictability of some of your members. Me good, you bad is not exactly sophisticated and denotes a weakness of intellectual acuity. Like a cat with a cruel predisposition I crave certain play, and afterall, isn’t that the privilege of the superior? Of course I am being ridiculous, but I see this attitude in many of you as I do in Free Dominion members. “Watch me take this guy apart”. “I’ll show him”. “Pay attention to me, I am smarter that you”. Etc.

Anyway, rest easy, there will be no experimenting on this board. Suzanne at FD would likely tell you what a nuisance I can be, ask her about my Irish Holocaust thread on her Catholic/Jewish discussion board, he he he – they freaked out. I think the thread was eventually deleted. No sense of humour among zealots, much like here.

I, your resident “right-wing-greaseball” propose something very straightforward. I would like to discuss Karl Marx and his work.

Marx had an archrival in philosopher Max Stirner, so much so he wrote a 500-page polemic denouncing Stirner, called him “St. Max”. In my humble opinion, Stirner is the father of modern day Anarchy (I understand opinions vary on this). His thoughts in contrast to Marx can be very illuminating.

After that I would then like to go on to several 19th century existentialist philosophers. I would recommend William Barrett’s “Irrational Mind” as a guide. He covers Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. Nietzsche and Heidegger, along with the Greeks influenced Leo Strauss, which will then bring us to the neo-conservative movement, as understood by William Kristol, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the twenty other neo-cons in the Bush administration.

As for Karl Marx being “the man” I submit for your consideration an opinion on Marx from Isaiah Berlin’s “Karl Marx” – Oxford Press 1963. I have met many men like Marx in my years and I know this scenario well. The final sentence sums up the underlying flaws in Communist thinking. Envy, resentment and revenge motivates the movement.

“Marx's own financial position was for many years desperate: he had no regular source of income, a growing family, and a reputation which precluded the possibility of employment by any respectable concern. The squalid poverty in which he and his family lived during the next twenty years, and the unspeakable humiliation which this entailed, have often been described: at first the family wandered from one hovel to another, from Chelsea to Leicester Square and thence to the disease-ridden slums of Soho; often there was no money to pay the tradesmen and the family would literally starve until a loan or the arrival of a pound note from Engels temporarily eased the situation; sometimes the entire dothing of the family was in pawn, and they were forced to sit for hours without light or food, interrupted only by the visits of dunning creditors, who were met on the doorstep by one or other of the children with the unvarying and automatic answer, 'Mr. Marx ain't upstairs.'

A lively description of the conditions in which he lived during the first seven years of exile survives in the report of a Prussian spy who somehow contrived to worm his way into the Dean Street establishment: '...He lives in one of the worst and cheapest neighbourhoods in London. He occupies two rooms. There is not one clean or decent piece of furniture in either room, everything is broken, tattered and tom, with thick dust over everything... manuscripts, books and news-papers lie beside the children's toys, bits and pieces from his wife's sewing basket, cups with broken rims, dirty spoons, knives, forks, lamps, an inkpot, tumblers, pipes, tobacco ash - all piled up on the same table. On entering the room smoke and tobacco fumes make your eyes water to such an extent that at first you seem to be groping about in a cavern - until you get used to it, and manage to make out certain objects in the haze. Sitting down is a dangerous business. Here is a chair with only three legs, there another which happens to be whole, on which the children are playing at cooking. That is the one that is offered to the visitor, but the children's cooking is not removed, and if you sit down you risk a pair of trousers. But all these things do not in the least embarrass Marx or his wife. You are received in the most friendly way and are cordially offered pipes, tobacco, and whatever else there may happen to be. Presently a clever and interesting conversation arises which repays for all the domestic deficiencies and this makes the discomfort bearable...' '

A man of genius forced to live in a garret, to go into hiding when his creditors grow importunate, or to lie in bed because his clothes are pawned, is a conventional subject of gay and sentimental comedy. Marx was not a bohemian, and his misfortunes affected him tragically. He was proud, excessively thin-skinned, and made great demands upon the world: the petty humiliations and insults to which his condition exposed him, the frustration of his desire for the commanding position to which he thought himself entitled, the repression of his colossal natural vitality, made him turn in upon himself in paroxysms of hatred and of rage. His bitter feeling often found outlet in his writings and in long and savage personal vendettas. He saw plots, persecution, and conspiracies everywhere; the more his victims protested their innocence, the more con-vinced he became of their duplicity and their guilt.

His mode of living consisted of daily visits to the British Museum reading-room, where he normally remained from nine in the morning until it closed at seven; this was followed by long hours of work at night, accompanied by ceaseless smoking, which from a luxury had become an indispensable ano-dyne; this affected his health permanently and he became lia-ble to frequent attacks of a disease of the liver sometimes accompanied by boils and an inflammation of the eyes, which interfered with his work, exhausted and irritated him, and in-terrupted his never certain means of livelihood. 'I am plagued like Job, though not so God-fearing', he wrote in 1858. 'Everything that these gentlemen [the doctors] say boils down to the fact that one ought to be a prosperous rentier and not a poor devil like me, as poor as a church mouse.' In other moods he would swear that the bourgeoisie would one day pay dearly for every one of his carbuncles...”

Karl Marx
Author: Isaiah Berlin
Pg#160

You've put it under auntie.com, but that forum is strictly for discussions of auntie's bi-weekly question-answer columns.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
karadjos, this topic probably belongs more properly under Science and Humanities.

You've put it under auntie.com, but that forum is strictly for discussions of auntie's bi-weekly question-answer columns.

Never fret, though. A moderator will move it when she sees it. I shall return to say a few choice things about Isaiah Berlin.

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Hi,

I posted it here because I had posted in another thread in this section. I will make sure I choose correctly in the future.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Cheers,

Black and Amiel became great patrons of Isaiah Berlin in his last days.

What I find amusing about that excerpt is that it is so obviously written by a finicky mid-C20 figure. Anyone who knows much about Victorian London would be able to stand back a moment, think about those details, and realize that they were not all that extraordinary at the time, not all that grim, as the account of how visitors were received attests.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
"Envy, resentment and revenge motivates the movement". Is this the Conrad Black school of historical criticism? So how do they explain Engels, then?

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I see him as another poor sap that supported Marx. He never got his proper due for the "Communist Manifesto" the pamphlet that made Communism a household word. It would appear Engels, the superior writer, penned it.

Without Engles and Jennifer Westphalen (Marx’s wife) Marx would have died a homeless transient - in my opinion.

I do know several refugee intellectuals as cultivated as Marx was, and successful in their own countries, who live in scarcely better conditions. It is interesting to observe that the men seem much less able - I don't even mean willing - to accept a job not worthy of an intellectual. Only the wife's work outside the home (a deep shame for middle-class people in Germany and England in Marx's day) and better social services have made the picture at all less grim.

I've read Yvonne Kapp's fascinating biography of Marx's three daughters - so much about the lives of women in Victorian London and other cities - and the circumstances described by Berlin improved significantly a bit later on.

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I've read Yvonne Kapp's fascinating biography of Marx's three daughters - so much about the lives of women in Victorian London and other cities - and the circumstances described by Berlin improved significantly a bit later on.

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Marx lost three children, due to illness as a result of poverty. I don't say this to mock him. I would think though that the loss of children due to poverty would make a man resentful toward society. I suppose I would feel that way as well.

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effusively or insincerely emotional; "a bathetic novel"; "maudlin expressons of sympathy"; "mushy effusiveness"; "a schmaltzy song"; "sentimental soap operas"; "slushy poetry"

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It was assumed to be sentimental, eg, if you read in order to "identify" with one character or another; if you began to think of the characters as independent wholes, with lives before and after the written text (What did Hamlet study at Wittenberg, anyway? How many children had Lady Macbeth? etc).

One was supposed to learn to read fiction as a poetic whole, to recognize that characters were words, formal structures on the page like all the other formal structures.

And one did.

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Envy, resentment and revenge motivates the movement.

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Originally posted by FakeDesignerWatch:
I'm confused, what are we arguing here? That Marxist theory arised from grim despair? And that this invalidates it?

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It's a curious argument, isn't it, FDW?

That the vast majority of people who lived in London in Marx's time were living in conditions that you and I couldn't face, and that Marx himself shared in the general plight -- that is supposed to invalidate any objections he had to the general plight?

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Originally posted by YPK:

Nietzsche's savaging of socialism in (I believe) "Twilight of the Idols" is spot-on, not to mention extremely entertaining. Spirited and passionate stuff.

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Agreed.

As far as I know Nietzsche made only one comment on Marx, in a round about way. He said that the Manifesto reminded him of Rousseau pamphleteering.

British royalty and the idle rich grew nervous with talk of revolution in the air. They would eventually have to pull out all the stops to kill this idea of a society designed around workers. And they're still at it while taxpayers pick up the tab.

Try as they may after all their attempts, but an idea can't be murdered as easily as paying starvation wages to Irish labourers or waging lopsided wars on tiny Latin American countries. The new capitalism is really colonialism made new again.

The Cap-onialists understand that their society based on racism and inequality could never be sold as an ideology to the masses all by istelf. Keynesian-militarism is needed to prop-up their old world ways. Observe the American national debt, budget and accounts deficits.

With Canada and the U.S.A. owning the highest rates of child poverty and infant mortality in the developed world, Marx is just as relevant today as he was in Dickenesian times.

[ 01 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
Marx's personal life and circumstances might be a factor in his thought; but it would probably be more useful to look at the intellectual climate and the ideas and arguments that were floating around. Weren't there a bunch of revolutions in 1848? Weren't there Chartists running around England? What was the historical context? [Not may area of specialization ]

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Good point. Marx was devastated by the failure of the Paris uprising of 1848, the first purely Socialist uprising in Europe. However, Marx’s outrageous temper tantrums aside, the Manifesto gained substance.

Marx, ever the megalomaniac, wasn’t happy with the slowness of the revolution. He wanted to be king today, not tomorrow. A typical, power hungry egomaniac.

Marx's support for attacking Russia in 1842, so as to help unify Germany, regardless of the cost, will also give you some insight into how his mind worked.

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I, your resident “right-wing-greaseball” propose something very straightforward. I would like to discuss Karl Marx and his work.

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Kind of off-topic, but I had to read through 3 paragraphs before I got to this (the apparent point of your comment).

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Marx's support for attacking Russia in 1842, so as to help unify Germany, regardless of the cost, will also give you some insight into how his mind worked.

His public support of the invasion of the Danish province of Schleswig-Holstein would also make good study.

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karadjos:

1. no doubt; and
2. no doubt.

So would you like to start off the discussion of either or both?

The point is?

Say, for the sake of argument, that Hume, Ricardo, and Malthus were all detestable elitist hypocrites, inspired by their own greed and insensitivity to the sufferings of others. As well, their privileged positions insulated them from the barbarity of the economic system that they espoused.

So, capitalism sucks and that's the end of the matter?

Someone explain why Nietzche is so peachy. I thought he was brilliant but maddeningly vague about just what the fuck we were supposed to do with our lives. I think anything good he produced he owed to Schopenhauer.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
That's right, because the elite few have only the gentic encoding for self-interest and appalling greed,

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then how do you explain the immense contributions of certain elite who go against the grain like to just mention a few: nobel, carnegie, massey, vanier, hell even heinz

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I thought he was brilliant but maddeningly vague about just what the fuck we were supposed to do with our lives.

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Whether Marx was envious or angry or not seems beside the point, except to observe that Marx's envy was pretty justified. I mean, if you observe massive injustice in society, can you only be right if you're not pissed off about it?

Right wingers are angry all the time. But that's not why I think they're wrong.

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Originally posted by YPK:

That's partly why he is so brilliant. No pat answers, no guidance whatsoever. Just wonderful critiques of everything revered.

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I don't mind that there's no pat answers really. Just stupid stuff about the "hard men making the hard decisions" [i'm paraphrasing] ... about what exactly?

And he condemns lots of things as stupid and weak, but then never gets into what it means to be smart and strong.

Please do not explain to me how I need to express myself. It’s not that I don’t need being told but the use of it in this case is supposed appear as clever rebuttal. All it is is insulting and brings the level of discussion down to a schoolyard.

If I had written something positive about Marx, which I had planned to do, many of you might have wanted to contribute, help buttress the case. Instead, because I don’t have the desire to kiss the man’s ass, I’m a typical this or that, a right-wing-greaseball etc. Christians do the same thing when you attack their messiah. As for hero worship, it is a sign of weakness, no matter who does it.

When people make comments about philosophers, such as Nietzsche, that are so preposterous, such as in this very thread, I never feel compelled to answer them directly. I admit my knowledge of Marx is a little weak but living in Toronto, where Marx permeates the air we breath, I feel like an expert. I am certain I have read more about him than most people but I am still learning, I understand that. As for the net result of his work, I think of the USSR and China – thanks, no thanks.

I would like to answer a question about Nietzsche. Before I do, as a service to the man’s memory, I would like to explain how to pronounce his name. It’s “Neet-cha” not “neet-chee”. If you are Polish a pronunciation along the lines of “Nitch-kee” is acceptable. Nietzsche’s family history includes Polish ancestry.

To paraphrase the question “why is Nietzsche regarded by so many as a genius?” The answers are many. His study of Greek culture as a Philologist comes to mind. His brilliant writing, Isaac Asimov called him the most important writer of that period. His concept of “Will to Power” which destroyed the accepted Schopenhauerian notion of “Will to Survive” as the fundamental driving instinct of life itself. Books like Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond and Good and Evil and Geneology of Morals are timeless classics that still stir the soul. The mind bending concept of Eternal Recurrence, which when understood quite literally changes the way you conceive the universe.

Nietzsche forces you to stare down even your ugliest monsters and to “overcome” them.

Even Marxists have to stand back when it comes to dissecting and explaining the reality of the Christian doctrine – case closed.

His courage in exposing Wagner, his one time close friend and mentor because of his rabid nationalism and anti-Semitism, along with writing some really irritating music. The “Case of Wager” or “Nietzsche Contra Wagner” will support this claim.

There are two points I would like to make that rarely are discussed when speaking of Nietzsche. If you read RJ Hollingdale translations you discover a laughing genius. Nietzsche had a wicked sense of humour. Readers of Kauffman translations will not see this.

Here’s just one small example.

“What is the most grievous thing the thinker can say to the artist is: ‘What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

Secondly, he believed being a teacher was a great responsibility. He drove himself to make his teaching exciting and compelling. Was he successful? Yes. Here is just one example of someone who was deeply and profoundly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Howard Bloom.

I have told this story before but obviously not here. I studied Nietzsche’s work for years. I have read a lot written by him and about him. At the time of this I was reading Howard Bloom’s “The Lucifer Principle”. He clearly thought highly of Nietzsche. The Nietzsche discussion board I was involved with was really hopping and I had cited some of Bloom’s positions. I suggested that the moderator invite him to join us. To our delight and surprise he did.

Here is how Bloom responded to a great question.

C.N.----Did the philosophy of Nietzsche have any influence on your thought? How so?

H.B.--- A tremendous influence. When I was a young and impressionable sixteen year old I was sent
off by my high school to take a course in philosophy at State University of NY, Buffalo. The two main texts we studied were Aristotle's Nicomachaean Ethics and Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Aristotle spoke in practical terms to my brain. He was Apollonian. Nietzche found the fire in my heart. He was Dionysian. Nietzsche's concept of the ubermensch, so horribly corrupted by the Nazis, showed its radiance and power when read without a thought to the horrors of the Second World War. It challenged the reader to soar above the sunshine of mountain tops when others chose the shadowed safety of the valleys. Like Thoreau's "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" and T.S. Eliots's "Hollow men, heads filled with straw" or Elliot's J. Alfred Prufrock who "measured out his life with coffee spoons" because he never had the courage to attempt the deeds of which he dreamed, Nietzsche warned me not to fall into the pathways dictated by convention, to never be caught in the doctrines of a creed-bound group, but to be a Steppenwolf, a loner, drawing the best substance from each subculture he could sample, but opposing each subculture's dark side, the part that would freeze the soul in sterile ritual, outworn thought, or outright hatred. Nietzsche, Elliott, Thoreau, and Edna St. Vincent Millay threw down a gauntlet. They said dare to take the challenge. Dare to do the dangerous, the outrageous, dare to be shunned, dare to stare destruction in the face, dare to stare down evil, even when its strength seems infinite and yours seems minuscule, look into the eyes of divinity though it is said that such a vision blinds, craft your own religion, find your own gods, seek forbidden, unspoken, and unknown truths, and undergo the pain or exhilaration of every human passion until you can feel with empathy the horror and the joys of millions, no matter where they be. Dare always to do the impossible. Dare to find the heart of authenticity. Dare to guard a hard-and-fast integrity based on what is right, what is just, what is most fervent in the human heart. Dare to be ecstatic when others are merely happy. Avoid the snares of the ordinary and bring Promethean fire from the realms of darkness to light the dark caves of humanity. The prose I've used is overblown, but so was Nietzche's, and frankly, it roused the soul through the its sheer audacity.- Howard Bloom

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As for hero worship, it is a sign of weakness, no matter who does it.

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And then you wrote all that wunnerful stuff about neechee!

Seriously though, I detected a bit of anger in that post. Where'd it come from?
If it came from the comments about your comments on Marx, for my part, and I think for some others, our response came from hearing tired dismissals of Marxism from rather unoriginal right-wing/pro-capitalist thinkers. If that wasn't where you were going, then fine, but I don't think you can blame some of us for interpreting it that way. If I erred, I apologise.

Believe it or not, the "net result" in Russia is
not the success of a free market system. They're worse off now than before glasnost. The number of Russian's living in poverty now is 30 times what it was before Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

And China's economy has been expanding for 21 years in a row and now creating over 400 000 jobs a month.

PuetskiM: "Oh what a lovely day outside!"

NeecheeFan: "Are you kidding me? This weather is so decadent. Go spiritually develop yourself you philistine."

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Someone explain why Nietzche is so peachy. I thought he was brilliant but maddeningly vague about just what the fuck we were supposed to do with our lives.

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Well he sort of did have a programme -- mostly around creepy Spartan warrior type activities. I've found the most interesting element of his work, or a means of reading it, is to take it fairlt literally as well as accepting the humour in it. Some of is really hilarious. There's a reference in Twilight Of The Idols why, if there's a philosophy of the eye, why is there no philosophy of the nose?

Why is vision celebrated, while smell is too be avoided?

I got a lot out of Nancy Love's book Marx, Nietzche and Modernity, Love evaluates and looks for similarities and diffrences between the two and then assesses attempts to marry the two, specifically by the Frankfurt School. I believe she argues it can't be done.

As for Nietzche's value to Marxists - I think there's quite a bit to be learnt from him. His criticism of slave mentality is quite repugnant on some levels, but it does open certain questions about why the oppressed accept their oppression or even celebrate it. As someone coming to Marxism after the end of the official Communism, and having watched the defeats mount, it is easy to embrace a kind of armchair Marxism that says "I told you so!" This is part of the reason why direct action anarchism is so appealing amongst some layers of radical youth. Reading many far left papers I get a sense of what's wrong with capitalism and how bad reformists are, but often with very little sense of what a person should do. I don't think Marx sufffered this affliction, or was unable to change his mind about correct action. His analysis of the Paris Commune speaks to this. Lenin's rejection of economic fatalism of the left or right versions is very much along these lines as well.

Edited to correct punctuation. Probably missed a few other typoes, but c'est la whatever.

[ 02 November 2004: Message edited by: BLAKE 3:16 ]

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Perhaps you could start a "right-wing-grease-ball" thread and defend its honour in the enemy camp for purely spiteful reasons?

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I see, karadjos, that you've taken my advice. I would appreciate some credit, however. The thread title should be "N.Beltov and right-wing-grease-balls" if you please.

Nice approach. A few shots across the bow. A personal attack on a leftist icon. Very classy...if I may say so.....very bougeois of you...

Bwa ha ha ha!

Never say, however, that your questions go unanswered at babble. Why are marxists and anarchists lumped together? Why.....because both approaches have a working class origin.....and in different countries at different time one or the other trend has dominated. Of course there's more trends now, but the two ideological trends fought it out in the First International, for example, in the 19th century. It was to the credit of Marx that he was able to put across his own views in the working class movement against the views of the anarchists. The entire history of the class would be different with a different result......

Try reading Proudhon's "Philosophy of Poverty" and then read Marx's reply in "Poverty of Philosophy"...there's a good right-wing-grease-ball .......

Anyway, I presume that that is why lagatta "lumped" the two trends together....They are historically connected and represent two dominant theoretical trends in the working class movement to this day.

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Originally posted by BLAKE 3:16:
As for Nietzche's value to Marxists - I think there's quite a bit to be learnt from him. His criticism of slave mentality is quite repugnant on some levels, but it does open certain questions about why the oppressed accept their oppression or even celebrate it. As someone coming to Marxism after the end of the official Communism, and having watched the defeats mount, it is easy to embrace a kind of armchair Marxism that says "I told you so!" This is part of the reason why direct action anarchism is so appealing amongst some layers of radical youth. Reading many far left papers I get a sense of what's wrong with capitalism and how bad reformists are, but often with very little sense of what a person should do. I don't think Marx sufffered this affliction, or was unable to change his mind about correct action. His analysis of the Paris Commune speaks to this. Lenin's rejection of economic fatalism of the left or right versions is very much along these lines as well.

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Interesting...Georgy Plekhanov criticized Lenin and his supporters at one point by mocking them and calling them "Lenin and his Nietzcheans"., or words to that effect. Plekhanov felt that Lenin was over-emphasizing the subjective factor ....

Ultrapolemicism does make for some zingy reads, but I think is one of the radical left's unfortunate habits. Especially when the radical left is small. Some recent, and not so recent, debates on movement tactics and strategies seem to have had the net effect of pushing ordinary people away.

An anticommunist joke I heard a while back made me think of a rather amusing incident at a municipal workers strike rally a couple of years back. I was walking with a fellow strker, who was a red diaper baby and very good activist, and a kid from a far left group started haranguing us, telling us that we were the vanguard of the struggle and we needed a general strike, etc. We smiled and answered, "We know. We're Marxists." He looked very puzzled. We kept marching.

Edited to add: Didn't see your response about Nietzsche and Lenin til after the post above was made. You're right about the need for movements to contain contradictions. Maybe less a subjective need, than objective reality. Let's see what others have to say.

[ 02 November 2004: Message edited by: BLAKE 3:16 ]

Yeah, lagatta, absolutely. Reich is very interesting. Don't know what he had to say on Nietzsche, but they would seem to share many concerns and given Freud's interest in Nietzsche it... I'm entering the world of goofy speculation. Time to stop.

Benjamin was very clearly influenced by Nietzsche. His work is totally peppered with quotes from him.

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I think Nietzsche appeals to men whereas Marx appeals to women who are generally (yes, I am generalizing) more concerned about security then fighting monsters.

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There's an aphorism by Nietzsche that goes something like, "People think women are deep. They are neither deep nor shallow. They have no bottom."

Nietzsche, Carlyle and Céline. I love reading them, all for similar reasons.

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The whole Marx OR Nietzsche thing seems a little silly. Ther are reasons for it of course, but those seem to be part of the tragedies of the 20th century and events neither were alive for, as well as the uses and abuses of their writings.

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Word, BLAKE 3.16.

Name-dropping is no way to write intellectual history. It is also no way to read any text.

It's odd when individualists seem so intent on picking teams. I suppose it's a peculiar combination of mental passivity and stimulation.

Marx is to capital what Darwin is to biology.

Without Marx, our understanding of capital would be greatly diminished.

LIke Darwin, Marx had a built in enemy. In Darwin's case it was a church that felt threatened by the theory of evolution.

In Marx's case it was the owners of capital.

The majority of Governors are Republican and the four new Supreme Court appointments over the next two years will know their influence. Say bye-bye to Roe v Wade.

I think Drury is brilliant. Those of you feeling rudderless in regards to the latest election, this is as good place to regain your bearings. It’s great we have such a controversial academic here in Canada. I just love a troublemaker.

As for Anarchy and labour, I did not deny this. When Anarchists join the Communists, it’s almost always bad for the Anarchists. I will be posting a very relevant and inspiring speech by Anarchist Voltairine De Cleyre about the infamous “Haymarket Bombings”(1886).Emma Goldman was one of many who praised her brilliance. Her personal story involves Goderich, Ontario. She’s a fascinating story and an exciting writer. If the Haymarket Bombing doesn’t layout the important differences between Anarchists and Communists, nothing will.

And of course Nietzsche looms large.

Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq

Danny Postel
16 - 10 - 2003

From: opendemocracy.net

Are the ideas of the conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss a shaping influence on the Bush administration’s world outlook? Danny Postel interviews Shadia Drury – a leading scholarly critic of Strauss – and asks her about the connection between Plato’s dialogues, secrets and lies, and the United States-led war in Iraq.

What was initially an anti-war argument is now a matter of public record. It is widely recognised that the Bush administration was not honest about the reasons it gave for invading Iraq.

Paul Wolfowitz, the influential United States deputy secretary of defense, has acknowledged that the evidence used to justify the war was "murky" and now says that weapons of mass destruction weren’t the crucial issue anyway (see the book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: the uses of propaganda in Bush’s war on Iraq (2003.)

By contrast, Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, argues that the use of deception and manipulation in current US policy flow directly from the doctrines of the political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His disciples include Paul Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives who have driven much of the political agenda of the Bush administration.

If Shadia Drury is right, then American policy-makers exercise deception with greater coherence than their British allies in Tony Blair’s 10 Downing Street. In the UK, a public inquiry is currently underway into the death of the biological weapons expert David Kelly. A central theme is also whether the government deceived the public, as a BBC reporter suggested.

The inquiry has documented at least some of the ways the prime minister’s entourage ‘sexed up’ the presentation of intelligence on the Iraqi threat. But few doubt that in terms of their philosophy, if they have one, members of Blair’s staff believe they must be trusted as honest. Any apparent deceptions they may be involved in are for them matters of presentation or ‘spin’: attempts to project an honest gloss when surrounded by a dishonest media.

The deep influence of Leo Strauss’s ideas on the current architects of US foreign policy has been referred to, if sporadically, in the press (hence an insider witticism about the influence of "Leo-cons"). Christopher Hitchens, an ardent advocate of the war, wrote unashamedly in November 2002 (in an article felicitously titled Machiavelli in Mesopotamia) that:
"[p]art of the charm of the regime-change argument (from the point of view of its supporters) is that it depends on premises and objectives that cannot, at least by the administration, be publicly avowed. Since Paul Wolfowitz is from the intellectual school of Leo Strauss – and appears in fictional guise as such in Saul Bellow’s novel Ravelstein – one may even suppose that he enjoys this arcane and occluded aspect of the debate."
Perhaps no scholar has done as much to illuminate the Strauss phenomenon as Shadia Drury. For fifteen years she has been shining a heat lamp on the Straussians with such books as The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988) and Leo Strauss and the American Right (1997). She is also the author of Alexandre Kojève: the Roots of Postmodern Politics (1994) and Terror and Civilization (forthcoming).

She argues that the central claims of Straussian thought wield a crucial influence on men of power in the contemporary United States. She elaborates her argument in this interview.

A natural order of inequality

Danny Postel: You’ve argued that there is an important connection between the teachings of Leo Strauss and the Bush administration’s selling of the Iraq war. What is that connection?

Shadia Drury: Leo Strauss was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics. Public support for the Iraq war rested on lies about Iraq posing an imminent threat to the United States – the business about weapons of mass destruction and a fictitious alliance between al-Qaida and the Iraqi regime. Now that the lies have been exposed, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the war party are denying that these were the real reasons for the war.
So what were the real reasons? Reorganising the balance of power in the Middle East in favour of Israel? Expanding American hegemony in the Arab world? Possibly. But these reasons would not have been sufficient in themselves to mobilise American support for the war. And the Straussian cabal in the administration realised that.

Danny Postel: The neo-conservative vision is commonly taken to be about spreading democracy and liberal values globally. And when Strauss is mentioned in the press, he is typically described as a great defender of liberal democracy against totalitarian tyranny. You’ve written, however, that Strauss had a "profound antipathy to both liberalism and democracy."

Shadia Drury: The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss’s disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it.
How could an admirer of Plato and Nietzsche be a liberal democrat? The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty. Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination – and in Strauss’s estimation they were right in thinking so.
Praising the wisdom of the ancients and condemning the folly of the moderns was the whole point of Strauss’s most famous book, Natural Right and History. The cover of the book sports the American Declaration of Independence. But the book is a celebration of nature – not the natural rights of man (as the appearance of the book would lead one to believe) but the natural order of domination and subordination.

The necessity of lies

Danny Postel: What is the relevance of Strauss’s interpretation of Plato’s notion of the noble lie?

Shadia Drury: Strauss rarely spoke in his own name. He wrote as a commentator on the classical texts of political theory. But he was an extremely opinionated and dualistic commentator. The fundamental distinction that pervades and informs all of his work is that between the ancients and the moderns. Strauss divided the history of political thought into two camps: the ancients (like Plato) are wise and wily, whereas the moderns (like Locke and other liberals) are vulgar and foolish. Now, it seems to me eminently fair and reasonable to attribute to Strauss the ideas he attributes to his beloved ancients.

In Plato’s dialogues, everyone assumes that Socrates is Plato’s mouthpiece. But Strauss argues in his book The City and Man (pp. 74-5, 77, 83-4, 97, 100, 111) that Thrasymachus is Plato’s real mouthpiece (on this point, see also M.F. Burnyeat, "Sphinx without a Secret", New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985 [paid-for only]). So, we must surmise that Strauss shares the insights of the wise Plato (alias Thrasymachus) that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice.
Leo Strauss repeatedly defends the political realism of Thrasymachus and Machiavelli (see, for example, his Natural Right and History, p. 106). This view of the world is clearly manifest in the foreign policy of the current administration in the United States.

A second fundamental belief of Strauss’s ancients has to do with their insistence on the need for secrecy and the necessity of lies. In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons – to spare the people’s feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals.

The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave, the husband over the wife, and the wise few over the vulgar many. In On Tyranny, Strauss refers to this natural right as the "tyrannical teaching" of his beloved ancients. It is tyrannical in the classic sense of rule above rule or in the absence of law (p. 70).

Now, the ancients were determined to keep this tyrannical teaching secret because the people are not likely to tolerate the fact that they are intended for subordination; indeed, they may very well turn their resentment against the superior few. Lies are thus necessary to protect the superior few from the persecution of the vulgar many.
The effect of Strauss’s teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite and the persecuted few. And it does not take much intelligence for them to surmise that they are in a situation of great danger, especially in a world devoted to the modern ideas of equal rights and freedoms. Now more than ever, the wise few must proceed cautiously and with circumspection. So, they come to the conclusion that they have a moral justification to lie in order to avoid persecution. Strauss goes so far as to say that dissembling and deception – in effect, a culture of lies – is the peculiar justice of the wise.

Strauss justifies his position by an appeal to Plato’s concept of the noble lie. But in truth, Strauss has a very impoverished conception of Plato’s noble lie. Plato thought that the noble lie is a story whose details are fictitious; but at the heart of it is a profound truth.

In the myth of metals, for example, some people have golden souls – meaning that they are more capable of resisting the temptations of power. And these morally trustworthy types are the ones who are most fit to rule. The details are fictitious, but the moral of the story is that not all human beings are morally equal.
In contrast to this reading of Plato, Strauss thinks that the superiority of the ruling philosophers is an intellectual superiority and not a moral one (Natural Right and History, p. 151). For many commentators who (like Karl Popper) have read Plato as a totalitarian, the logical consequence is to doubt that philosophers can be trusted with political power. Those who read him this way invariably reject him. Strauss is the only interpreter who gives a sinister reading to Plato, and then celebrates him.

The dialectic of fear and tyranny

Danny Postel: In the Straussian scheme of things, there are the wise few and the vulgar many. But there is also a third group – the gentlemen. Would you explain how they figure?

Shadia Drury: There are indeed three types of men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar. The wise are the lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognise neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the "higher" pleasures, which amount to consorting with their "puppies" or young initiates.

The second type, the gentlemen, are lovers of honour and glory. They are the most ingratiating towards the conventions of their society – that is, the illusions of the cave. They are true believers in God, honour, and moral imperatives. They are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice at a moment’s notice.
The third type, the vulgar many, are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe.

Like Plato, Strauss believed that the supreme political ideal is the rule of the wise. But the rule of the wise is unattainable in the real world. Now, according to the conventional wisdom, Plato realised this, and settled for the rule of law. But Strauss did not endorse this solution entirely. Nor did he think that it was Plato’s real solution – Strauss pointed to the "nocturnal council" in Plato’s Laws to illustrate his point.

The real Platonic solution as understood by Strauss is the covert rule of the wise (see Strauss’s – The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws). This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate them. Supposedly, Xenophon makes that clear to us.

For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which the vulgar many have triumphed. It is the age in which they have come closest to having exactly what their hearts desire – wealth, pleasure, and endless entertainment. But in getting just what they desire, they have unwittingly been reduced to beasts.

Nowhere is this state of affairs more advanced than in America. And the global reach of American culture threatens to trivialise life and turn it into entertainment. This was as terrifying a spectre for Strauss as it was for Alexandre Kojève and Carl Schmitt.

This is made clear in Strauss’s exchange with Kojève (reprinted in Strauss’s On Tyranny), and in his commentary on Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political (reprinted in Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue). Kojève lamented the animalisation of man and Schmitt worried about the trivialisation of life. All three of them were convinced that liberal economics would turn life into entertainment and destroy politics; all three understood politics as a conflict between mutually hostile groups willing to fight each other to the death. In short, they all thought that man’s humanity depended on his willingness to rush naked into battle and headlong to his death. Only perpetual war can overturn the modern project, with its emphasis on self-preservation and "creature comforts." Life can be politicised once more, and man’s humanity can be restored.

This terrifying vision fits perfectly well with the desire for honour and glory that the neo-conservative gentlemen covet. It also fits very well with the religious sensibilities of gentlemen. The combination of religion and nationalism is the elixir that Strauss advocates as the way to turn natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die for their God and country.

I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to being realised in the political life of a great nation like the United States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny.

Danny Postel: You’ve described Strauss as a nihilist.

Shadia Drury: Strauss is a nihilist in the sense that he believes that there is no rational foundation for morality. He is an atheist, and he believes that in the absence of God, morality has no grounding. It’s all about benefiting others and oneself; there is no objective reason for doing so, only rewards and punishments in this life.

But Strauss is not a nihilist if we mean by the term a denial that there is any truth, a belief that everything is interpretation. He does not deny that there is an independent reality. On the contrary, he thinks that independent reality consists in nature and its "order of rank" – the high and the low, the superior and the inferior. Like Nietzsche, he believes that the history of western civilisation has led to the triumph of the inferior, the rabble – something they both lamented profoundly.

Danny Postel: This connection is curious, since Strauss is bedevilled by Nietzsche; and one of Strauss’s most famous students, Allan Bloom, fulminates profusely in his book The Closing of the American Mind against the influence of Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.

Shadia Drury: Strauss’s criticism of the existentialists, especially Heidegger, is that they tried to elicit an ethic out of the abyss. This was the ethic of resoluteness – choose whatever you like and be loyal to it to the death; its content does not matter. But Strauss’s reaction to moral nihilism was different. Nihilistic philosophers, he believes, should reinvent the Judæo-Christian God, but live like pagan gods themselves – taking pleasure in the games they play with each other as well as the games they play on ordinary mortals.

The question of nihilism is complicated, but there is no doubt that Strauss’s reading of Plato entails that the philosophers should return to the cave and manipulate the images (in the form of media, magazines, newspapers). They know full well that the line they espouse is mendacious, but they are convinced that theirs are noble lies.

The intoxication of perpetual war

Danny Postel: You characterise the outlook of the Bush administration as a kind of realism, in the spirit of Thrasymachus and Machiavelli. But isn’t the real divide within the administration (and on the American right more generally) more complex: between foreign policy realists, who are pragmatists, and neo-conservatives, who see themselves as idealists – even moralists – on a mission to topple tyrants, and therefore in a struggle against realism?

Shadia Drury: I think that the neo-conservatives are for the most part genuine in wanting to spread the American commercial model of liberal democracy around the globe. They are convinced that it is the best thing, not just for America, but for the world. Naturally, there is a tension between these "idealists" and the more hard-headed realists within the administration.

I contend that the tensions and conflicts within the current administration reflect the differences between the surface teaching, which is appropriate for gentlemen, and the ‘nocturnal’ or covert teaching, which the philosophers alone are privy to. It is very unlikely for an ideology inspired by a secret teaching to be entirely coherent.
The issue of nationalism is an example of this. The philosophers, wanting to secure the nation against its external enemies as well as its internal decadence, sloth, pleasure, and consumption, encourage a strong patriotic fervour among the honour-loving gentlemen who wield the reins of power. That strong nationalistic spirit consists in the belief that their nation and its values are the best in the world, and that all other cultures and their values are inferior in comparison.

Irving Kristol, the father of neo-conservatism and a Strauss disciple, denounced nationalism in a 1973 essay; but in another essay written in 1983, he declared that the foreign policy of neo-conservatism must reflect its nationalist proclivities. A decade on, in a 1993 essay, he claimed that "religion, nationalism, and economic growth are the pillars of neoconservatism." (See "The Coming ‘Conservative Century’", in Neoconservatism: the autobiography of an idea, p. 365.)

In Reflections of a Neoconservative (p. xiii), Kristol wrote that:

"patriotism springs from love of the nation’s past; nationalism arises out of hope for the nation’s future, distinctive greatness…. Neoconservatives believe… that the goals of American foreign policy must go well beyond a narrow, too literal definition of ‘national security’. It is the national interest of a world power, as this is defined by a sense of national destiny … not a myopic national security".

The same sentiment was echoed by the doyen of contemporary Straussianism, Harry Jaffa, when he said that America is the "Zion that will light up all the world."
It is easy to see how this sort of thinking can get out of hand, and why hard-headed realists tend to find it naïve if not dangerous.

But Strauss’s worries about America’s global aspirations are entirely different. Like Heidegger, Schmitt, and Kojève, Strauss would be more concerned that America would succeed in this enterprise than that it would fail. In that case, the "last man" would extinguish all hope for humanity (Nietzsche); the "night of the world" would be at hand (Heidegger); the animalisation of man would be complete (Kojève); and the trivialisation of life would be accomplished (Schmitt). That is what the success of America’s global aspirations meant to them.

Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man is a popularisation of this viewpoint. It sees the coming catastrophe of American global power as inevitable, and seeks to make the best of a bad situation. It is far from a celebration of American dominance.

On this perverse view of the world, if America fails to achieve her "national destiny", and is mired in perpetual war, then all is well. Man’s humanity, defined in terms of struggle to the death, is rescued from extinction. But men like Heidegger, Schmitt, Kojève, and Strauss expect the worst. They expect that the universal spread of the spirit of commerce would soften manners and emasculate man. To my mind, this fascistic glorification of death and violence springs from a profound inability to celebrate life, joy, and the sheer thrill of existence.

To be clear, Strauss was not as hostile to democracy as he was to liberalism. This is because he recognises that the vulgar masses have numbers on their side, and the sheer power of numbers cannot be completely ignored. Whatever can be done to bring the masses along is legitimate. If you can use democracy to turn the masses against their own liberty, this is a great triumph. It is the sort of tactic that neo-conservatives use consistently, and in some cases very successfully.

Among the Straussians

Danny Postel: Finally, I’d like to ask about your interesting reception among the Straussians. Many of them dismiss your interpretation of Strauss and denounce your work in the most adamant terms ("bizarre splenetic"). Yet one scholar, Laurence Lampert, has reprehended his fellow Straussians for this, writing in his Leo Strauss and Nietzsche that your book The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss "contains many fine skeptical readings of Strauss’s texts and acute insights into Strauss’s real intentions." Harry Jaffa has even made the provocative suggestion that you might be a "closet Straussian" yourself!

Shadia Drury: I have been publicly denounced and privately adored. Following the publication of my book The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss in 1988, letters and gifts poured in from Straussian graduate students and professors all over North America – books, dissertations, tapes of Strauss’s Hillel House lectures in Chicago, transcripts of every course he ever taught at the university, and even a personally crafted Owl of Minerva with a letter declaring me a goddess of wisdom! They were amazed that an outsider could have penetrated the secret teaching. They sent me unpublished material marked with clear instructions not to distribute to "suspicious persons".

I received letters from graduate students in Toronto, Chicago, Duke, Boston College, Claremont, Fordham, and other Straussian centres of "learning." One of the students compared his experience in reading my work with "a person lost in the wilderness who suddenly happens on a map." Some were led to abandon their schools in favour of fresher air; but others were delighted to discover what it was they were supposed to believe in order to belong to the charmed circle of future philosophers and initiates.

After my first book on Strauss came out, some of the Straussians in Canada dubbed me the "bitch from Calgary." Of all the titles I hold, that is the one I cherish most. The hostility toward me was understandable. Nothing is more threatening to Strauss and his acolytes than the truth in general and the truth about Strauss in particular. His admirers are determined to conceal the truth about his ideas.

My intention in writing the book was to express Strauss’s ideas clearly and without obfuscation so that his views could become the subject of philosophical debate and criticism, and not the stuff of feverish conviction. I wanted to smoke the Straussians out of their caves and into the philosophical light of day. But instead of engaging me in philosophical debate, they denied that Strauss stood for any of the ideas I attributed to him.

Laurence Lampert is the only Straussian to declare valiantly that it is time to stop playing games and to admit that Strauss was indeed a Nietzschean thinker – that it is time to stop the denial and start defending Strauss’s ideas.
I suspect that Lampert’s honesty is threatening to those among the Straussians who are interested in philosophy but who seek power. There is no doubt that open and candid debate about Strauss is likely to undermine their prospects in Washington.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-77-1542.jsp

[ 04 November 2004: Message edited by: karadjos ]

quote:

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Originally posted by aRoused:
Not a flame, but a link and a short quote will make you more friends on babble than posting entire articles. We're enemies of scrolling.

Or as the Norse said 'True friendship comes at little cost. With half a loaf and a tilted jug I have won me many a friend.'

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http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1489165

Here's a sample:

Marx's theory of cattle

He did once say this much: “In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity...society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, herdsman or critic.” Whether cattle would be content to be reared only in the evening, or just as people had in mind, is one of many questions one would wish to see treated at greater length. But this cartoon is almost all Marx ever said about communism in practice. The rest has to be deduced, as an absence of things he deplored about capitalism: inequality, exploitation, alienation, private property and so forth.

It is striking that today's militant critics of globalisation, whether declared Marxists or otherwise, proceed in much the same way. They present no worked-out alternative to the present economic order. Instead, they invoke a Utopia free of environmental stress, social injustice and branded sportswear, harking back to a pre-industrial golden age that did not actually exist. Never is this alternative future given clear shape or offered up for examination.

And anti-globalists have inherited more from Marx besides this. Note the self-righteous anger, the violent rhetoric, the willing resort to actual violence (in response to the “violence” of the other side), the demonisation of big business, the division of the world into exploiters and victims, the contempt for piecemeal reform, the zeal for activism, the impatience with democracy, the disdain for liberal “rights” and “freedoms”, the suspicion of compromise, the presumption of hypocrisy (or childish naivety) in arguments that defend the market order.

Anti-globalism has been aptly described as a secular religion. So is Marxism: a creed complete with prophet, sacred texts and the promise of a heaven shrouded in mystery. Marx was not a scientist, as he claimed. He founded a faith. The economic and political systems he inspired are dead or dying. But his religion is a broad church, and lives on.

But for anti-globalisationists with no plan, one may look at

Oxfam
The Alternative Budget
The Green Budget Coalition

In canada.

For socialism in practice, one could use the cities of Bolognia, Florence, Lyon, who have been/are governed by socialist mayors

http://www.eurocities.org/eurocities/Documents/CV_Collomb_Lyon_EN.pdf

Marx's political isolation ended in 1864 with the founding of the International Working Men's Association. Although he was neither its founder nor its head, he soon became its leading spirit.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=35434&query=France%2C%20history%20of

Blake 3:16:
... and many very concrete proposals. Some of these are the demands listed at the conclusion of the Communist Manifesto.

Could you cite one/ones that you agree with, please?

[ 04 November 2004: Message edited by: karadjos ]

quote:

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Originally posted by FakeDesignerWatch:
It's true, Marx is best a critique. He wasn't a policy guy.

But for anti-globalisationists with no plan, one may look at

Oxfam
The Alternative Budget
The Green Budget Coalition

In canada.

For socialism in practice, one could use the cities of Bolognia, Florence, Lyon, who have been/are governed by socialist mayors.

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The city of Vienna has been socialist for several decades. Hayek wrote his, 'Road to Serfdom', a critique of socialism while living in Vienna. And it was also the city where Karl Polanyi wrote, The Great Transformation, and who is considered the father of modern socialism. Viennese have chosen socialism for several decades with a lapse during the fascist years when socialist points of view were not tolerated by the Nazis. It's no secret which of the two ideologues Viennese supported even today.

Indeed, Euro-socialism thrives in what are the largest groupings of wealthiest nations in the world. Finland has a strong socialist political presence and was recently listed by Harvard Business school and various conservative think tanks as the most competitive economy in the world. No less than five socialist countries are listed in the top ten most competitive economies in the world.

Singapore, socialist since 1965, has a robust economy with fifth highest average incomes in the world today.

Socialism shaped the most important economies in the world over the last century, including the U.S.A.'s after 1929. David Ricardo to Hume to von Hayek, all predicted a failure of socialism. But they are dead a long time.

[ 04 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/cleyre/Cleyrearchive.html

There is an speech she gave that I wanted to link to but I can't find one. Does anyone have a link to it? It was given November 11, 1901 in Chicago.

I got thrown off there simply for posting a few undisputable facts about the US government and all the terrorist groups and regimes it has sponsored, including some of those it is now invading. Then again, the truth is something the freak dominion finds annoying.

As to the Karl Marx stuff, Karadjos should be advised that Karl Marx was sort of a "left-wing" grease ball, when he was younger (as am I in many respects).

Over the years, I have found that anti-socialistic corporate apologists are forced to resort to coming up with all sorts of personal allegations against Marx, simply because they can't find any way to disprove or discredit his writings about the capitalist system and the state.

It's also why the various fascistic power cliques that hide behind socialistic rhetoric to push their capitalistic agendas (like the Bolsheviks, Stalinists, etc.) have to twist and lie about Marxist definitions to justify themselves.

The fact is most of Marx's observations are based on plain common sense, despite the highbrow verbose manner in which they are written and translated. That what makes them so indestructible.

Marx and similar writers were inspired by the large number of communes in Europe (where the term "communist" comes from). These were democratic self-governing cooperative townships that for generations have fought against totalitarian feudal tyrannies only to be put down by the rising power of the equally totalitarian capitalist class of the industrial revolution, and being absorbed into the large growing urban working class.

As for the personal stuff, let's not forget that Marx spent a lot of his life under house arrest or fleeing state persecution. He was forced to leave his native Germany with his young family after the government closed down the publication he worked at, known as the Radical Democracy Weekly.

In fact, for a long ti9me, the only publication that he was allowed to write for was the International Socialist Review, that was based in New York.

As for any personal failings he may have had, I say so what. The guy was an economist and a journalist, not a saint or a prophet or a saviour of humanity.

As for his kids, I have read some of the writing of his daughter Eleanor Marx Aveling and son-in-law Paul Lafarge--both fairly successful writers and activists, despite political persecution.

Pure, laissez faire capitalism lasted about 30 years before failing on a world wide scale in the 1930's. And various experiments in economic Darwinism have failed in spite of the best efforts since 1929. JM Keynes saved capitalism from itself using socialist-lite ideas.

Wrong. I am still a member.

>Why did you say that?

Well, I guess in my skimming through your vast amounts of text, I jumped the gun a bit, thinking that because you mentioned a vicious welcome and being found to be a nuicance for even mentioning the name Karl Marx, that the FD censorship board would have tossed you out too.

Then again, it semms I'm just in the mood to share some good wine, so being kicked off the FD would be a great excuse to celebrate.

We'll be bottling some well-done Zinfandel wine this weekend.

quote:

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Blake 3:16:
... and many very concrete proposals. Some of these are the demands listed at the conclusion of the Communist Manifesto.

Could you cite one/ones that you agree with, please?

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The demands are the following:

1.Abolition of property in land and applications of rents of land to public purposes.
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3.Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution over the country.
10 Free education for all. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial problems, &c., &c.

Pretty much agree with them all -- a few a bit loose for interepretation and given official Communism's practices, one need a more nuanced approach -- but please remember this stuff is more than 150 years old. Some of the demands are things that have been won in some parts of the world, but are by no means universal. 4, 6, and 8 demand qualifiers.

One of the most interesting things I've learnt about Marx of late is about his appreciation of soil as a natural resource and source of wealth. John Bellamy Foster and others have written on this. I was surprised to see it in the Manifesto, but then I'm a silly urban dude who goes to the Bruce trail if I'm really wild every few years.

Edited for spelling mistakes/typos.

[ 15 November 2004: Message edited by: BLAKE 3:16 ]