Marxism

[Fauzjhia]

this is Plato opinion of Democracy. The Idiots people killed socrates because he was asking too many questions, they are obviously too dumb to be allowed to vote on important policies, only those who take time to think, the philosophers, should be allowed to vote on important policies.

obviously the marxists-leninists claims to be thoses philosophers, just like the priests from catholic church claimed it. I really doubt Plato though about ideological or religious group when he was thinking about philosophers, but this is what happened.

The liberal democracies of Europe and the United States are vastly different from the authoritarian plutocracies of Athenean Greece.

how does that negate the point, the opinion the marxists-leninists have about the people, who would be too stupid to make the important choice. after all, Hitler as first elected, by a free vote. how does that negate the point that marxists-leninist believe the people, if allowed to vote in a socialist state, would choose oppression for themselves, and bring down socialism.
they believe people are too stupid to vote. that's even reflected in today's China's constitution, regarding the role of the Communist party of China

[UniversalCommons]

Because communism and capitalism do not provide the highest standards of living. Places like Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand are nice places to live without the problems of being the worlds policemen or superpowers. Someone looks at the countries with the highest standard of living which are democracies with mixed economies, free from corruption, and responsive to their citizens. They basically look at this and say I want a government free from corruption, with representatives that will take care of me, allow me to participate, and provide enough for me to live. The ideologues get steamrolled for practicality and direct representation.

[Cisairse]

I'm confused why you think your beliefs are ideologically aligned with your own interests.

To believe otherwise is to suggest you know more about his interests than he does.

Yes. And?

[Cisairse]

I'm confused why you think your beliefs are ideologically aligned with your own interests.

Because I prefer to live in a functioning, capitalist society that gives me the opportunity to forward my position and social stature and economic position in my country rather than a one-party totalitarian dictatorship that controls where I work, what living conditions I get, and directly counteracts my liberty.

That's a horribly naive take.

[Slaver Pirates of Vaas]

• Is Marxism—Leninism revisionist, or is it merely an extension of Marx's views?
• Do you believe that Marx has been vindicated or damned by the more than 170 years since he began to publish his theories?

1. Marxism can be described as the founding ideology of all modern communist and socialist ideologies. Due to Marx's death before he could finish his work, many have had to put the pieces together of what would have been his ideas. This creates two main ideological divisions in Marxist thought, orthodox (those who follow what had already been published by Marx) and unorthodox (those who use what has already been published, but add in extensions to the overall idea). This is why ideologies like Social Democracy (which isn't even considered socialist) and Democratic Socialism all come from the same pillars of Marxist ideology. That's not to say those two ideologies are now bad. Marxist-Leninism is a form of orthodox Marxism as Lenin pretty much followed all of the things Marx taught with overthrowing the ruling class via revolution.

2. "Cultural Marxism" is a popular conspiracy theory term often applied to "radical" liberals, so that should answer your question.

[Northern Davincia]

To believe otherwise is to suggest you know more about his interests than he does.

Yes. And?

Do you not think that is conceited? Heck, communist governments typically fail because they make the assumption that they know better than the people.

[Cisairse]

Yes. And?

Do you not think that is conceited? Heck, communist governments typically fail because they make the assumption that they know better than the people.

I think it's silly to assume that every person knows exactly what ideology will be most helpful for their interests, and ardently believes such.

[Atheris]

Do you not think that is conceited? Heck, communist governments typically fail because they make the assumption that they know better than the people.

I think it's silly to assume that every person knows exactly what ideology will be most helpful for their interests, and ardently believes such.

It's also silly to assume that one ideology is the right choice for everybody's interests. Surprise, surprise, not everybody enjoys living in a truly totalitarian state that communist theory outlines.

[Cisairse]

I think it's silly to assume that every person knows exactly what ideology will be most helpful for their interests, and ardently believes such.

It's also silly to assume that one ideology is the right choice for everybody's interests. Surprise, surprise, not everybody enjoys living in a truly totalitarian state that communist theory outlines.

Communist theory outlines no such "totalitarian state," and marxism isn't the same as communism.

[Atheris]

It's also silly to assume that one ideology is the right choice for everybody's interests. Surprise, surprise, not everybody enjoys living in a truly totalitarian state that communist theory outlines.

Communist theory outlines no such "totalitarian state," and marxism isn't the same as communism.

Communist theory outlines a totalitarian state that decides where the worker lives, what goods the workers get, and what jobs the worker has. That's extremely totalitarian. Plus, yes, all communism is Marxism. Communism is directly derived from Marxism; saying communism isn't Marxism is like saying Strasserism isn't National Socialism.

[Cisairse]

Communist theory outlines no such "totalitarian state," and marxism isn't the same as communism.

Communist theory outlines a totalitarian state that decides where the worker lives, what goods the workers get, and what jobs the worker has. That's extremely totalitarian. Plus, yes, all communism is Marxism. Communism is directly derived from Marxism; saying communism isn't Marxism is like saying Strasserism isn't National Socialism.

I highly recommend you read a few books on Marxism and communism. Your post contains several critical falsehoods that seem borne out of naivete.

[Atheris]

Communist theory outlines a totalitarian state that decides where the worker lives, what goods the workers get, and what jobs the worker has. That's extremely totalitarian. Plus, yes, all communism is Marxism. Communism is directly derived from Marxism; saying communism isn't Marxism is like saying Strasserism isn't National Socialism.

I highly recommend you read a few books on Marxism and communism. Your post contains several critical falsehoods that seem borne out of naivete.

My thoughts on communism are born directly from the Communist Manifesto and talks with communists.

[Kowani]

I highly recommend you read a few books on Marxism and communism. Your post contains several critical falsehoods that seem borne out of naivete.

My thoughts on communism are born directly from the Communist Manifesto and talks with communists.

…Okay, I’m not an orthodox Marxist, but even I know that reading the CM and expecting to get an understanding of any value is like expecting to understand all of American history by reading Howard Zinn.


You’ll get a very twisted picture.

[Duvniask]

I highly recommend you read a few books on Marxism and communism. Your post contains several critical falsehoods that seem borne out of naivete.

My thoughts on communism are born directly from the Communist Manifesto and talks with communists.

This is an embarrassment. You clearly haven't understood anything you've read if you come away from the Communist Manifesto thinking communism is about totalitarian statism.

The Communist Manifesto is also among the earliest works of Marx, and is hardly indicative of his later anti-statism as it appears in Critique of the Gotha Program:
"Free state — what is this? It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free. In the German Empire, the "state" is almost as "free" as in Russia. Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state"."

[UniversalCommons]

The Communist Manifesto is utopian, much like The Wealth of Nations. The contents represent an ideal state of human action. They do not represent what happens to the idea in the real world. Much like the Republic, they are removed from having to interact with every day life. There is understanding what happens if every human being acted exactly as depicted in the book, versus how human beings actually act. Enough time has passed where people can see what happens outside of the book, when the ideas are implemented. Like so many ideal systems, they do not work the same way in the real world as in the book. All political systems get tested when they are put into use. Real politic is very different from ideals. In my view, the test is whether your system generates the highest quality of life and standard of living which communism does not.

[Atheris]

My thoughts on communism are born directly from the Communist Manifesto and talks with communists.

This is an embarrassment. You clearly haven't understood anything you've read if you come away from the Communist Manifesto thinking communism is about totalitarian statism.

The Communist Manifesto is also among the earliest works of Marx, and is hardly indicative of his later anti-statism as it appears in Critique of the Gotha Program:
"Free state — what is this? It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free. In the German Empire, the "state" is almost as "free" as in Russia. Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state"."

I beg to differ. The main goal of the Communist Manifesto is a totalitarian police state. The idealist communist state will enforce participation, decide where the workers work, the goods they get, the places they live, and if they deserve to live or not. Communism and socialism revolve around class warfare, which leads to a police state that decides who's a "bourgeoisie" and who's a "proletariat". It's easily exploitable and will be exploited if put into practice. The state that communism strives for has total control over the life of its citizens. That is, by definition, totalitarian.

[Slaver Pirates of Vaas]

Ideally, communism is supposed to turn into anarchism of the communist variant. However, in practice the state doesn't go away due to corruption and politicians wanting to maintain power.

[Duvniask]

This is an embarrassment. You clearly haven't understood anything you've read if you come away from the Communist Manifesto thinking communism is about totalitarian statism.

The Communist Manifesto is also among the earliest works of Marx, and is hardly indicative of his later anti-statism as it appears in Critique of the Gotha Program:
"Free state — what is this? It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free. In the German Empire, the "state" is almost as "free" as in Russia. Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state"."

I beg to differ. The main goal of the Communist Manifesto is a totalitarian police state ...

No. You should resign yourself to not saying things about that which you know nothing.

[Duvniask]

I'm not denying or ignoring anything about defector accounts having internal inconsistencies. Fucking Christ. You on the other hand sure are "denying the work of North Korea experts and analysts in the field" when it comes to serious human rights violations that aren't merely about lack of food provision or housing, but brutal and intentional state repression.

You refuse to go beyond this diatribe about defector accounts being inconsistent, you refuse to actually engage with any of my points beyond that, such as how a consistent pattern of human rights abuses has emerged in spite of these inadequacies in information.

Because you do not seem to realize the ramifications of the well-documented phenomenon of the unreliability and inconsistencies of North Korean defectors in regards to the fact that North Korean defectors are a main source of info on North Korea, which tendencies are increased by South Korean government intervention.

Your wishy-washy faux skepticism continues. You literally cannot shut up about this.

Me: "North Korea is a bad place"
You: "Most information comes from witnesses that are unreliable"
Me: "So you're just going to deny all of them?"
You: "It's a well documented phenomenon that witnesses are unreliable"
Me: "Ok, but if you look at them on the average, as the experts do, a consistent pattern emerges where-"
You: "It's a well documented phenomenon that witnesses are unreliable"
Me: "Well, once you cross-examine the stories-"
You: "It's a well documented phenomenon..."

I'm trying really hard to take this conversation beyond the same tune. If you're not going to budge there's no point in continuing.

Where do you think the UN Human Rights inquiry got their information on human rights abuses? On North Korean defectors. Are all information from those North Korean defectors reliable? No.

The UN Commission on Inquiry literally says:
Owing to its lack of access to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the commission obtained first-hand testimony through public hearings that were transparent, observed due process and protected victims and witnesses. More than 80 witnesses and experts testified publicly and provided information of great specificity, detail and relevance, in ways that often required a significant degree of courage.


And this is a red flag that the UN gets a lot of its information on North Korea on unreliable information. While undoubtedly there are human rights abuses in North Korea, a lot of those might be exaggerated, a lot of those are not as severe as they are frequently portrayed or might not even exist.

It says "witnesses and experts". And you're badly misrepresenting the methodology of the Commission. I'd recommend reading the methodology section of the full 372-page document to get a sense of the process (especially for finding corroborating evidence), the burden of proof and the considerations about witness reliability:

• "The Commission obtained and reviewed a wealth of other reports and written materials prepared by the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, governments, research institutes and academics. While the findings in this report rely primarily on firsthand testimony from victims and witnesses, the written record has provided invaluable context and a source of corroboration. Many reports and documents were tendered by witnesses at the public hearings. They were all recorded as exhibits and are part of the record of those hearings." (§38, p. 11)

• "The lack of physical access to witnesses and sites in the DPRK, coupled with the stated protection concerns, created a number of particular challenges for an effective investigation.
  
  The pool of potential first-hand witnesses is limited to no more than 30,000 citizens who have left the DPRK, the vast majority of whom reside today in the Republic of Korea. Most of these witnesses are from provinces bordering China, which means that the situation in those provinces is relatively better documented than the situation in other provinces of the DPRK. In most cases, a person who fled the DPRK requires considerable time to reach a place of safety and to develop the courage necessary to speak about his or her experience. Given that the Commission applied a rigorous standard of proof based on first-hand testimony, it was therefore not able to confirm many of the most recent instances of human rights violations alleged by non-governmental organizations and media reports." (§56-57, p. 14)

• "The Commission also obtained clandestinely-recorded videos and photographs showing relevant sites, documents and correspondence that elucidated alleged violations of human rights in the DPRK. The Commission relied on such material to the extent that it could confirm its authenticity." (§61, p. 15)

• "The Commission is conscious of the fact that most victims and witnesses cooperating with the Commission had an overall unfavourable opinion of the DPRK’s authorities, though usually not of the country itself or its people. Through its refusal to cooperate with the Commission, the DPRK deprived itself of the opportunity to offer its own perspectives on the human rights situation and to provide information on any advances made in regard to the human rights of its population. The Commission has sought to account for these challenges by carefully reviewing information provided by the DPRK in publicly available documents. In particular, the Commission has reviewed the DPRK’s state reports to the Universal Periodic Review and the Treaty Bodies as well as the publicly available summaries of its responses to letters of allegations transmitted by the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Figures and other relevant claims of fact stated in these documents are reflected in this report, even if the Commission could not confirm their basis or validity." (§62, p. 15)

• "There are “reasonable grounds” establishing that an incident or pattern of conduct has occurred when the Commission is satisfied that it has obtained a reliable body of information, consistent with other material, based on which a reasonable and ordinarily prudent person has reason to believe that such incident or pattern of conduct has occurred. This standard of proof is lower than the standard required in criminal proceedings to sustain an indictment, but is sufficiently high to call for further investigations into the incident or pattern of conduct and, where available, initiation of the consideration of a possible prosecution. The findings of the Commission appearing in this report must be understood as being based on the “reasonable grounds” standard of proof, even when the full expression (“reasonable grounds establishing”) is not necessarily expressed throughout the text of this report." (§68, p. 16)

• "Individual cases and incidents reflected in this report are generally based on at least one credible source of first-hand information, which was independently corroborated by at least one other credible source of information. To the extent that protection considerations permit, sources are identified. Where the report describes patterns of conduct, these are based on several credible sources of first-hand information, which are consistent with, and corroborated by, the overall body of credible information collected. In the few instances where this rigorous standard of proof could not be met, but the Commission still considered it appropriate to reflect the incident or pattern, the underlying sources are identified." (§70, p. 16)

• "The Commission additionally considered that any piece of information had to be assessed for its validity by considering, amongst other factors, the information’s relevance to the inquiry, its internal consistency and coherence, its logicality and its consistency with and corroboration by other information." (§74, p. 17)

• "Assessments of the reliability and credibility of the source were separated from assessments of the validity of the information. The Commission did not assume that a witness, judged to be a credible and reliable source, would necessarily provide accurate and valid information." (§75, p. 17)

You're very much making it seem like they just invited some North Korean defectors in to talk about how evil the government is and not, you know, a rigorous process of cross-case comparison and corroboration by expert testimony and submitted academic material, satellite imagery, evaluation of the witness' character, etc.

B-but Shin Dong-hyuk made it up!!!!

Your linked paper is concerned with the right to food, and how this is impacted by hardliner reactions that result in sanctions, which is wholly different from matters of civil and political rights.

Economic rights, like getting food is also a big part of human rights. The claim that DPRK was violating the “right to food” was a big part of the UN Commission of Inquiry report. The peer-reviewed paper reported that based on statistical information, this is not true.

An equally long section of the report, Findings: Section E, is dedicated to "Arbitrary detention, torture, executions, enforced disappearance and political prison camps".

But go ahead and ignore that, because it's very inconvenient and North Korea would obviously never admit to it.

Tell me something, because you ignored this little question of mine. Do you support North Korea or not?

Critically – I do not support North Korea in everything that they do, but we shouldn’t also dogshit them for everything that they do.

I believe I already have told you reasons why.

If you honest to God support this monarchist farce masquerading as a socialist workers' paradise, then you are not worth talking to. There's nothing worthwhile about it. Oppression is not good because those doing it are "anti-imperialist" and other such nonsense.

[West Leas Oros 2]

I want people who say bullshit about Marx or Marxism being “class reductionist” to look in the mirror and decide if they can really call themselves “socialists” while discrediting socialist theory and parroting liberal propaganda. This sort of rhetoric is how the bourgeoisie wins.

As for Marxism-Leninism or whatever, not only is it revisionist, but it is neither Marxist nor Leninist. It’s the HRE of communism.

Vindicated. While I admit that Marx does have a few “old timey” theories that didn’t come to fruition, the contradictions of capitalism are no less prevalent today than in his time, and when you strip away the veneer of liberal reformism and whatnot, the relations of production remain largely the same as they did. Whether you agree with Marxism or not, there is an almost uncanny foresight present.

[Duvniask]

The North Korean response to the UN Inquiry, the Report of the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies, also contains this little gem that caught my attention:

"The DPRK has the unique system of socialist production. Thanks to the system, the DPRK could fully afford the necessary funds for the economic and cultural construction, improvement of people's livelihood, and the state management with the income of socialist state-run enterprises and cooperative organizations." (p. 32)

Muh SoCIaLiST accumulation of capital by state enterprises.

[Dominioan]

Ideally, communism is supposed to turn into anarchism of the communist variant. However, in practice the state doesn't go away due to corruption and politicians wanting to maintain power.

Yes, people will inherently want to keep power once they gain it. I agree that if communism managed to get past the "dictatorship of the proletariat" then it would be a good system. But human nature won't let it.

[Northern Davincia]

Do you not think that is conceited? Heck, communist governments typically fail because they make the assumption that they know better than the people.

I think it's silly to assume that every person knows exactly what ideology will be most helpful for their interests, and ardently believes such.

On this point, how could you possibly know better if many people don't know for themselves? What makes you so enlightened?

[Cisairse]

I think it's silly to assume that every person knows exactly what ideology will be most helpful for their interests, and ardently believes such.

On this point, how could you possibly know better if many people don't know for themselves? What makes you so enlightened?

Well, nothing. I consider myself well-read on the matter, but I'm no single-source-of-truth for anything (except that which I have personally written).

However, I would feel comfortable saying that people who are generally ignorant about politics know less about what ideologies are in their self-interest than those who are knowledgeable about politics.

[Northern Davincia]

On this point, how could you possibly know better if many people don't know for themselves? What makes you so enlightened?

Well, nothing. I consider myself well-read on the matter, but I'm no single-source-of-truth for anything (except that which I have personally written).

However, I would feel comfortable saying that people who are generally ignorant about politics know less about what ideologies are in their self-interest than those who are knowledgeable about politics.

So, what exactly is their self-interest?