06-06-2021, 09:27 AM
Marxism is obsolete. The demand for social justice is not obsolete.
Yu can trust that with the profit motive comes a desire for self-preservation. and capitalists are wise to ensure that the common man have a stake in the capitalist system. The survival of capitalism depends upon the consent a nd acquiescence of people not capitalists. Most people lack the self-discipline and foresight to be capitalists, which is much like most people lack the skill-set to be plumbers or aviation mechanics.
Owning and operating a capitalist enterprise, even if nothing more than a newsstand, gift-shop, or diner is a specialized set of skills in the same sense that teaching or engineering is.
The spectre of rule by a Communist Party that will dispossess and either kill or exile feudal and capitalist elites has forced the capitalist class and big landowners to take one of two routes. The highest risk goes with establishing an order similarly brutal and repressive as Stalinism, such as Nazi Germany or Pinochet's Chile, that at the least suppresses any semblance of left-wing thought or organization through lies, tortures, and murders. With super-cheap labor and a monopolized economy, the capitalist and land-owning classes can keep everything for themselves that is not not needed to keep workers alive, if destitute. The other is to humanize capitalism by sharing some of the boon that capitalists might get if they took everything for themselves.
....Ownership may be overvalued with material objects. All material objects eventually rot, wear out, break down, or become obsolete. If you don't believe me, then just visit a thrift shop. You will find plenty of music LP's of music tailor-made for middle-aged people in the 1960's. The kids now think those corny. You will find plenty of VHS tapes. Those are woefully inadequate for current preferences. You no longer need rewind DVD's that take up much less space and have far more features. You will find plenty of "legible clothing" commemorating events that people no longer care about. You might find coffee cups with names of businesses long obsolete. You might find obsolete equipment for computers such as scanners (those are now built into printers).
Yu can trust that with the profit motive comes a desire for self-preservation. and capitalists are wise to ensure that the common man have a stake in the capitalist system. The survival of capitalism depends upon the consent a nd acquiescence of people not capitalists. Most people lack the self-discipline and foresight to be capitalists, which is much like most people lack the skill-set to be plumbers or aviation mechanics.
Owning and operating a capitalist enterprise, even if nothing more than a newsstand, gift-shop, or diner is a specialized set of skills in the same sense that teaching or engineering is.
The spectre of rule by a Communist Party that will dispossess and either kill or exile feudal and capitalist elites has forced the capitalist class and big landowners to take one of two routes. The highest risk goes with establishing an order similarly brutal and repressive as Stalinism, such as Nazi Germany or Pinochet's Chile, that at the least suppresses any semblance of left-wing thought or organization through lies, tortures, and murders. With super-cheap labor and a monopolized economy, the capitalist and land-owning classes can keep everything for themselves that is not not needed to keep workers alive, if destitute. The other is to humanize capitalism by sharing some of the boon that capitalists might get if they took everything for themselves.
....Ownership may be overvalued with material objects. All material objects eventually rot, wear out, break down, or become obsolete. If you don't believe me, then just visit a thrift shop. You will find plenty of music LP's of music tailor-made for middle-aged people in the 1960's. The kids now think those corny. You will find plenty of VHS tapes. Those are woefully inadequate for current preferences. You no longer need rewind DVD's that take up much less space and have far more features. You will find plenty of "legible clothing" commemorating events that people no longer care about. You might find coffee cups with names of businesses long obsolete. You might find obsolete equipment for computers such as scanners (those are now built into printers).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.