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Did Karl Marx predict our Housing/Economic collapse?


               
2009 Oct 31, 6:24pm   3,861 views  7 comments

by 4X   follow (0)  

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

....Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. Marx thought that during such an economic crisis the price of labor would also fall, and eventually make possible the investment in new technologies and the growth of new sectors of the economy.

Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that in the long-term this process would necessarily enrich and empower the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat. He believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of production less vulnerable to periodic crises. He theorized that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat - a period where the working class holds political power and forcibly socializes the means of production - would exist. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."[28] While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralized state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."[

#housing

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3   Vicente   @   2009 Nov 1, 1:46am  

I liken Marx to Peter Schiff or Nouriel Roubini. People who were DEAD-ON accurate about what was going to happen and why. When they moved on to what would happen next and what you should do about it, is where they went off into the weeds.

Marx critique of the failings of capitalism are many times accurate and often ignored. The reason is, his cure is worse than the disease, and most people can never make it past this point. If Marx had stopped with his criticisms and left it to others to work out solutions he would not be so viscerally reviled. It fascinates me when people toss about the term "Marxist" as an epithet when they have no knowledge of whether it even applies or not.

4   LandShark2847   @   2009 Nov 1, 4:29am  

he surely pointed out a capitalist government does not represent the working class

why Marx is ignored? because ruling class controls what the working class can see and hear.

do people really have freedom of speech? yes we do, the problem is we cant be heard.

5   thomas.wong87   @   2009 Nov 1, 6:59am  

define the ruling class...

I guess that would be those who voted for McCain and not Obama... or is Obama part of the ruling class
since he won the election.

"because ruling class controls what the working class can see and hear."

So 'they' allow the internet to exist without 'china filtering servers'.

Cubans say access to online market site is blocked

HAVANA (Reuters) -
A popular website of classified ads that has given Cubans a taste of the free market has been blocked on the communist-run island, Internet users said.

Cubans trying to access Revolico.com, which says it has more than 1.5 million page views a month, are being diverted to the search engine Google.com.

"If I type the address and press 'enter,' I get redirected. If I Google it and click, I get redirected. What is going on?," asked Sandra a 30-year-old government employee who, like several others interviewed, did not give their full names.

Cuban computer experts say an Internet content filter is preventing access to the Craigslist-like site, which has emerged as a booming virtual free market in the socialist nation with a tightly controlled economy where consumer goods tend to be scarce and expensive.

On Revolico.com, Cubans with access to the Internet can buy and sell anything from computer memory sticks to a 1950 Plymouth.

"There you can find all the things the government sells you at brutal prices and freely pick exactly what you want," said Alberto, who recently used Revolico.com to buy a computer that was not available in the stores.

The Internet in Cuba is controlled by the state monopoly ETECSA, a joint venture between the Cuban government and Telecom Italia.

6   HeadSet   @   2009 Nov 1, 1:12pm  

LandShark says

why Marx is ignored? because ruling class controls what the working class can see and hear.

Is this joke? The primary places where the ruling class controls what the working class can see and hear is in the Marxist countries themselves.

7   4X   @   2009 Nov 1, 2:39pm  

I think he was referring to the point if Marx had not promoted communism. In an earlier post, Vincente had mentioned that most people do not look at Marx for guidance on how to improve capitalism because "his cure is worse than the disease, and most people can never make it past this point. "

...meaning why move to a communist society where very few elite enjoy the life of luxury while the remaining stiffs work all day.

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