tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post2989766727687096495..comments2024-03-17T00:23:24.896-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program”: Four PointsLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-33485613483478995712015-04-30T11:19:22.959-07:002015-04-30T11:19:22.959-07:00Von Minsky, both of those quotes actually support ...Von Minsky, both of those quotes actually support the arguments you claim they rebut; one references the emergency powers of the Roman republic (also mentioned in Draper), and the other illustrates the gradual shift in colloquial usage at the end of the 19th century referenced in both Draper and the glossary entry I quoted. Please read more carefully!Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-15472041657106498992015-04-30T09:12:35.411-07:002015-04-30T09:12:35.411-07:00Draper was wrong.
"Dictator"
Online et...Draper was wrong.<br /><br />"Dictator"<br /><br />Online etymology dictionary:<br /><br />"late 14c., from Latin dictator, agent noun from dictare (see dictate (v.)). Transferred sense of "one who has absolute power or authority" *in any sphere is from c. 1600.* In Latin use, a dictator was a judge in the Roman republic temporarily invested with absolute power."<br /><br />http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dictator&allowed_in_frame=0<br /><br />Oxford English Dictionary:<br /><br />example from 1874, from J. Morley's 'On Compromise': "Our people..have long ago superseded the barbarous device of dictator and Cæsar by the great art of self-government."<br /><br />To quote 'The Princess Bride' on your and Draper's defense: "You keep using that word...I don't think it means what you think it means."Von Minskynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-70247215429985269592015-04-30T07:25:07.060-07:002015-04-30T07:25:07.060-07:00Talking about revolution is very different from ta...Talking about revolution is very different from talking about a stable social order. Use your brain.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-30402877225745725332015-04-30T07:05:40.144-07:002015-04-30T07:05:40.144-07:00Engels' begs to differ:
"A revolution is...Engels' begs to differ:<br /><br /><i>"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough? "</i>Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-48491641976710930202015-04-30T07:02:11.552-07:002015-04-30T07:02:11.552-07:00No, it's the other way around. You lack any s...No, it's the other way around. You lack any sort of evidence that Marx proposed an authoritarian regime, save for your *completely ahistorical* misreading.<br /><br />Seriously, ten seconds on Google:<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia entry!</a><br /><br />"<i>Both Marx and Engels argued that the short-lived Paris Commune, which ran the French capital for over two months before being repressed, was an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.<br /><br />"According to Marxist theory, the existence of any government implies the dictatorship of a social class over another. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is thus used as an antonym of the dictatorship of the proletariat.[4]</i>"<br /><br /><a href="https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dictatorship" rel="nofollow">Three back-to-back entries</a> in the marxists.org glossary: Dictatorship, Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, Dictatorship of the Proletariat!<br /><br /><i>"It was only gradually, during the 1880s, that ‘dictatorship’ came to be routinely used to mean a form of government in contrast to ‘democracy’ and by the 1890s was generally used in that way. Prior to that time, throughout the life-time of Karl Marx for example, it was never associated with any particular form of government, everyone understanding that popular suffrage was as much an instrument of dictatorship as martial law."</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/hal-draper/article2.htm" rel="nofollow">Here's an essay on the subject!</a><br /><br /><i>"The first question is: when it appeared in print in the spring of 1850, what did the phrase mean to Marx and to his contemporaneous readers?<br /><br />"The key fact, which was going to bedevil the history of the term, is this: in the middle of the nineteenth century the old word ‘dictatorship’ still meant what it had meant for centuries, and in this meaning it was not a synonym for despotism, tyranny, absolutism, or autocracy, and above all it was not counterposed to democracy."</i><br /><br />Got all that? Bonus: The word "totalitarian" <i>did not even exist yet</i>, only being coined in the early 20th century.<br /><br />You need to educate yourself, and by that I do not mean "feed your ravenous confirmation bias." I can't be holding your hand every step of the way.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-43464292181656036842015-04-30T00:19:23.021-07:002015-04-30T00:19:23.021-07:00In other words, you have no evidence that Marx'...In other words, you have no evidence that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was anything but an authoritarian regime.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-60390608349749046252015-04-29T23:28:47.951-07:002015-04-29T23:28:47.951-07:00Once again, exquisite rudeness. Where did you say...Once again, exquisite rudeness. Where did you say you went to finishing school again? May want to ask for a refund.<br /><br />You have not quite got it straight, either; the goal would not be a "liberal" (which is quite bound up in the capitalist project) democracy, but a radical one.<br /><br />The specific form of this can vary. Just as there are many styles of governance that can represent bourgeois interests (from an inclusive parliamentarian system such as that in, say, Holland, to any of the fascist regimes the world saw in the 20th century), there are many kinds of institutional arrangements that would constitute a proletarian government. These two contrasting dictatorships merely characterize the dominant productive relations being expressed at the political level.<br /><br />As for what Marx envisioned, he was generally circumspect about blueprints and predictions of that sort, particularly in his later years; it's something that's got to be determined in context, by the people who effect it. That said, the goal is indeed democracy -- a better one, since it is well established that what currently passes for it is <a href="http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf" rel="nofollow">skewed to a degree that beggars belief</a>. One might go so far as to argue capitalism itself is fundamentally antithetical to democracy across several domains -- the rampant inequality it promotes, the relations of dominance in the workplace that essentially compartmentalize our ability to relate to one another democratically, and even in terms of time; increasingly direct forms of democracy are more time-intensive, which can't fly in a system with no internal drive for reducing working hours (quite the contrary, in fact). As any familiar with the history of democracy can attest, the word has meant different things throughout the ages (see, e.g., Canfora's Democracy in Europe), but the goal is to pursue ever more substantive forms.<br /><br />Lastly, nothing about the other characteristics you mention conflict inherently with socialism. Meanwhile, I don't know if you've been following recent events here in the Greatest Democracy Under God, but many of those points you raise (especially arbitrary arrests, civil liberties, freedom etc.) are not going so well and, properly speaking, never have in the first place.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-46692556586871341512015-04-29T14:31:10.436-07:002015-04-29T14:31:10.436-07:00" To modern sensibilities "dictatorship ...<i>" To modern sensibilities "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a striking phrase, but bear in mind that by the same analysis, we were then and still are now living under a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie."</i><br /><br />So let me get this straight: you think Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was supposed to be -- even in his mind -- a system of democracy, constitutional government, with regular elections, open to all political parties, civil liberties, no arbitrary arrests, and freedom of religion and association?<br /><br />You're telling me it was a modern liberal democracy? You need your bloody head examined.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-15300170973298086332015-04-29T13:14:43.053-07:002015-04-29T13:14:43.053-07:00Your reading remains quite uncharitable!
It shoul...Your reading remains quite uncharitable!<br /><br /><i>It should be quite clear that Marx’s envisages an authoritarian system here.</i><br /><br />Only if you ignore context. To modern sensibilities "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a striking phrase, but bear in mind that by the same analysis, we were then and still are now living under a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." It's a question of which class is dominant, not rank authoritarianism.<br /><br /><i>So the general prohibition of child labour was for Marx an “empty, pious wish” and “reactionary” – a truly astonishing datum and piece of hypocrisy given that in The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels demanded an end to “the exploitation of children by their parents”.</i><br /><br />That demand never went away. But the education/labor question is linked, in his view (see, e.g., <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1866/08/instructions.htm" rel="nofollow">section 4 of this</a>). Marx had a particular view of education as something integrated (google "polytechnical education") wherein intellectual ends are linked to practical, physical, and technological ones (and certainly not in overwhelming quantities!), with the ultimate aim of developing well-rounded people without the overspecialization/deskilling that capitalism promotes to turn people into mere instruments. Plenty of room for debate, but once again not nearly so monstrous as you'd make it seem.<br /><br />Lastly, given your own evocation of religion to attack your opponents, one would think you'd be into the secular themes.<br /><br />Consider this often-butchered passage: "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." <br /><br />That is, it's a <i>medicine</i> for people with no recourse. Marx's idea is that if you remove the material conditions that create the desperation and suffering from which people seek refuge in religion, then religion itself fades from the fore. We've seen as much in recent history, with the growth of secularism corresponding to affluence. No suppression or abridgment of freedom required.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.com