(02-20-2021, 09:52 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-20-2021, 04:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(02-20-2021, 02:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(02-20-2021, 12:48 AM)Einzige Wrote:(02-18-2021, 04:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the notion of a century plus old system still being viable as more the fantasy. I could agree that the still alive modern systems are closer to each other than the notion that you have to change democratic cultures with violence. I could agree that violence might still be necessary if autocratic cultures do not listen to their people.
But for the US, the Marxist system is more obsolete than the political spectrum a fantasy. You measure the systems that are relevant.
What century plus old system?
The Bolshevik Revolution took place nearly 105 years ago. Stalin's worst horrors happened about 90 years ago.
The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848.
It's noteworthy that economic dogmas have a short shelf life. What we call "the economy" has changed so much in the last 200 years that its hard to see much of the past being relevant today. Keynes was uniquely foresighted by being uniquely open about the economic model. He focused on the human factors. Marx, on the other hand, was totally immersed in his model, which is so out of date today it's hard to take it seriously anymore.
It's just as well. Economic dogmas adapt to technological change and social necessity or they die. But if they adapt they change, often into something that doesn't quite seem the same.
To consider Marx relevant one must add one epicycle after another. I read at one time that it was possible to have a earth-centered model of the universe to the extent of adding epicycles to accommodate relativity! It is simply far too complex to keep credibility.
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.