The Communist Manifesto

[Pliny]

I said:

Marx seems to take an external view of society as though he is detached and above it and describing how things haven't changed much throughout history, what he sees and what he deems is necessary to make corrections.

Not to be condescending, but if this is what you think Marx wrote, then you either haven't read Marx at all or you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what you read. The entire point Marx was making is about how and why things change throughout history the way they do. He turned Hegelian dialectics on its head, as they always say. Taking the engine of history out of the clouds of ideas and ideologies and grounding it in the material relationships between people. His work is far from a prescription. Marx didn't prescribe anything and that's the problem scholars have with his work. He simply described things, as he believed they were. He was more a historian than anything.

Considering the first sentence in the Communist Manifesto is, "The history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles." I believe I stated that quite similarly by saying "things hadn't changed much throughout history". I suppose I could have been more precise and said "throughout the history of social evolution".

And as for not prescribing things, what are the points of the Communist Manifesto but a "prescription".

What do you mean by "turning Hegelian Dialectics on it's head"?

Marx was a big fan of Hegelian Dialectics and thought it was a "great advancement" in scientific thought.

Have you read any Marx?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Pliny

[cybercoma]

Considering the first sentence in the Communist Manifesto is, "The history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles." I believe I stated that quite similarly by saying "things hadn't changed much throughout history". I suppose I could have been more precise and said "throughout the history of social evolution".

And as for not prescribing things, what are the points of the Communist Manifesto but a "prescription".

What do you mean by "turning Hegelian Dialectics on it's head"?

Marx was a big fan of Hegelian Dialectics and thought it was a "great advancement" in scientific thought.

Have you read any Marx?

Marx was a fan of Hegel? Really? That must be why he called the Young Hegelians a bunch of idiots. I'm paraphrasing.

Like I said. It's not really worth discussing something with people who have formed opinions on things before they've even read them.

[Pliny]

Marx was a fan of Hegel? Really? That must be why he called the Young Hegelians a bunch of idiots. I'm paraphrasing.

Like I said. It's not really worth discussing something with people who have formed opinions on things before they've even read them.

He called the young Hegelians "a bunch of idiots". Do you have any idea why?

The "Young Hegelians" believed the political/social structure was based in religion and thus attacked religion. Marx was originally a Young Hegelian. He broke from the group because he considered the ownership of capital and not religion as being the basis of the establishment's power. His discontent had little to do with Hegelian philosophy.

From Wikipedia: "Another Young Hegelian, Karl Marx, was at first sympathetic with this strategy of attacking Christianity to undermine the Prussian establishment, but later formed divergent ideas and broke with the Young Hegelians, attacking their views in works such as The German Ideology. "Marx (and Engels) considered religion as a component of the ideological superstructure of societies, and a pre-rational mode of thought, which nonetheless was wielded by ruling elites to obscure social relationships including the true basis of political power. In this latter sense, he described religion as "the opium of the people"."

So that is where "Religion is the opiate of the people" originates. Religion, in Marx's view, was something wielded by elites to maintain power .

As for standing "Hegelian Dialectics on its head". That is a reference to Hegel's statement, "The World stood upon its head..." So Marx made Hegelian dialectics stand upon it's feet, basically taking it from an ideology to materialism, an improvement according to Marx and Engels.

From Wikipedia: "The ultimate sense of Marx's materialist philosophy is that philosophy itself must take a position in the class struggle based on objective analysis of physical and social relations. Otherwise, it will be reduced to spiritualist idealism, such as the philosophies of Kant or Hegel, which are only ideologies, that is the material product of social existence."

You may not have felt the discussion worthwhile but I have. Thank you.

[cybercoma]

Looks like you came full-circle back to what I originally said.

He turned Hegelian dialectics on its head, as they always say. Taking the engine of history out of the clouds of ideas and ideologies and grounding it in the material relationships between people.

[Pliny]

Looks like you came full-circle back to what I originally said.

I agree with that statement.

I was replying more to the following statement you made.

Marx was a fan of Hegel? Really? That must be why he called the Young Hegelians a bunch of idiots. I'm paraphrasing.

I understood that statement to imply Marx's complete refutation of Hegel with which I would disagree.

Marxist theory owes quite a bit to Hegelian dialectics and Marx's claim, as you correctly say, is that he grounded it in the scientific method taking it from the philosophic realm. He was indeed a fan of Hegel. He was not a fan of religion or religious ideology and that would mark his separation with Hegel and his abandonment of association with the Young Hegelians. The fact he was a Young Hegelian marks, in my view, his general respect for Hegel.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Pliny

[bleeding heart]

I don't know if you are mistaken or not. I have enjoyed some of her works, as they warn of the oppressive State.

And the oppressive weak majority; and the oppressive altrusists; and the oppressive workers...

Hell, the only people that aren't oppressive to Rand are some of the most powerful people on Earth.

Her opponents may describe her as "famously" misanthropic and proudly elitist and I would probably agree with proudly elitist. She abhorred the State more than mankind though or she couldn't have written what she wrote. Marx was, by his writings, more misanthropic than Rand.

Please, she abhorred mankind too...except for the top tiers, whom she rather slavishly worshipped (so much for "independence" and so on). She even expressed profound admiration for a famous child murderer...because he was a "man of will" who didn't let society dictate his mores and behaviours.

She was a monumental asshole, in other words.

[Pliny]

Hell, the only people that aren't oppressive to Rand are some of the most powerful people on Earth.

I wonder why she didn't like Stalin then?

She was a monumental asshole, in other words.

From what I've read of her personal life I can't say I disagree.

She was an "egoist" with a philosophy of "rational egoism" and probably rubbed more than a few people, who would have viewed her as elitist and arrogant, the wrong way.

But how would her libertarian belief in not initiating force against another make her a misanthrope? Stalin was unmistakably a misanthrope,Mao,Hitler - the loss of millions of lives and the devastation they created could make them nothing but.

[bleeding heart]

I wonder why she didn't like Stalin then?

So, she was part of the club of innumerable hundreds of millions who despised Stalin. If that sets the bar for decency, we're all saved.

But how would her libertarian belief in not initiating force against another make her a misanthrope? Stalin was unmistakably a misanthrope,Mao,Hitler - the loss of millions of lives and the devastation they created could make them nothing but.

Ok...Rand wasn't as bad as Hitler.

[cybercoma]

I agree with that statement.

I was replying more to the following statement you made.

I understood that statement to imply Marx's complete refutation of Hegel with which I would disagree.

Marxist theory owes quite a bit to Hegelian dialectics and Marx's claim, as you correctly say, is that he grounded it in the scientific method taking it from the philosophic realm. He was indeed a fan of Hegel. He was not a fan of religion or religious ideology and that would mark his separation with Hegel and his abandonment of association with the Young Hegelians. The fact he was a Young Hegelian marks, in my view, his general respect for Hegel.

I think we're saying the same thing now. You assumed I meant that Marx discarded Hegelian philosophy. That's not what I meant, if it came off that way. He agreed with Hegel's process of history, the structure of his theory, but that's where the agreement ends.

[Pliny]

I think we're saying the same thing now. You assumed I meant that Marx discarded Hegelian philosophy. That's not what I meant, if it came off that way. He agreed with Hegel's process of history, the structure of his theory, but that's where the agreement ends.

Correct.