*marxism

@Jinx

you used a great word:"nuance" and i would add "context".

i know you identify as a social justice warrior,and many here on the sift do as well.i would even include myself on that list in certain instances.

but this video is not addressing the rational and reasonable people who have valid grievances and wish to stand up for:human rights,fairness,justice and equality.

this video is addressing those who abuse political correctness to further their own,personal agenda,dressed up as social justice.these people,who have co-opted,infiltrated and hijacked LEGITIMATE and VALID causes and corrupted them with an irrationality that should,and IS,being ridiculed.

why?
because in the free market of ideas,where there is a free flow of information and dialogue,is the place where bad ideas go to die.

but how do these extremist deal with criticism?
with scrutiny and examination of their call for justice?

well,they simply ACCUSE you of being a:racist,bigot,homophobe etc etc and that is where the conversation ends.the very act of accusing shuts down any dissenting voice by demonizing that person for having the audacity to even question their righteous crusade.

change takes time in a free society.this is a slow process.
so archaic,societal and cultural belief systems take time to shift,but what has ALWAYS been the successful trait in every single victory for social justice is:conversation and discussion.making people aware of the situation and then addressing the problem.

basically it takes people talking about it.

but that is not the tactic we see used by these perpetually offended and faux outraged.THEIR tactic is to shut the conversation down as viciously and violently as they can.they are allergic to dissent or disagreement,and to even attempt to point out the logical fallacies,or incongruities will get you labeled a racist,bigot or homophobe.

that is not justice.that is censorship with a large dose of fascist.

this video makes a solid case for pointing out how a small cadre of narcissistic cry-babies have hijacked groups who had actual grievances and created an atmosphere of fear,anxiety and paranoia simply to promote their own brand of social justice by latching onto real movements...and in the process..destroyed them.

did you SEE what they did to occupy?
or their current slow motion destruction of feminism?
or how about that semi-retarded atheism plus?
good lord..just go watch PZ meyers slowly become a former shadow of himself to pander to these fuckwits.

look man.
even YOU acknowledge that their are some who abuse political correctness for their own self-aggrandizement,and i suspect that even YOU do not identify with this small group of extremists.

well,that is who this video is addressing.

i mean.what fair and reasonable person is AGAINST women having equality or being treated fairly?
who would be AGAINST fighting corruption in our political and economic systems?

but this new batch of social justice warriors are all about THEIR rights.THEIR feelings.THEIR safe spaces and THEIR fascist ideologies on how a society should behave and act.

and if you happen to disagree they will unleash the most vile and vicious tactics to not only shut you up,but lose your job AND,in some cases,abuse a court system to make you criminally libel.all because of THEIR agenda.

free speech is only something THEY are entitled to,YOU get to shut the fuck up.

this ultra-authoritarian,cultural marxism is so anti-democratic and anti-free society,that it must be called out and ridiculed for it's own absurd lack of self-awareness.

they should be laughed at,ridiculed and chastised for the idiocy it proposes.

now maybe we disagree on this,and that is fine.disagreements will happen and they are healthy.

but just know i am not addressing those actual social justice warriors,but rather their more radical and fascist minority that appear to have hijacked the conversation.

and i truly highly doubt you are part of that minority,and if you are?
sorry man.we disagree.

Hahaha... seriously, what kind of passive aggressive bullshit is that? "Ignoring the theoretical underpinnings of socialism, because I've decided that that's waffling, I say Jesus was a socialist." Next time, maybe just write TL;DR and make a farting noise while rolling your eyes.

You can't dismiss the actual meaning of the word Socialist as 'semantics', if you're talking about whether or not something is socialist. That doesn't help the discussion.

In order to use socialism as you appear to be doing, you would have to first:
- ignore the history of socialism and its political development,
- ignore the entire body of academic work, current and past, on socialism, and
- ignore how the word socialism "IS used now, like it or not" in actual socialist or semi-socialist countries

By doing that you end up at your definition of the word, yes. But you had to take a pretty long detour to get to that point

Marx's quote on religion is pretty straightforward - it can be, as you say, open to interpretation, but it's generally agreed that he didn't say that your Jesus was a stand-up socialist. He is more commonly taken to mean that religion is a false response to the real suffering of the oppressed; religion provides a fiction of suffering and a fiction of redemption/happiness, that will never translate into real change. It makes the oppressed feel like they are bettering their lives, while actually keeping them passive and preventing them from changing anything.

The slightly larger context of the quote is this: "Das religiöse Elend ist in einem der Ausdruck des wirklichen Elendes und in einem die Protestation gegen das wirkliche Elend. Die Religion ist der Seufzer der bedrängten Kreatur, das Gemüth einer herzlosen Welt, wie sie der Geist geistloser Zustände ist. Sie ist das Opium des Volks."

I don't know how to make that more plain, but I can try. Religious suffering is on one hand a response to real suffering (wirkliche Elend, by which one would mean a materialistically determined actual lack of freedom, resources, physical wellbeing, etc), but it is also a false reaction against that real suffering. Real oppression creates suffering to which there could be a real respones, but religion instead substitutes in false suffering and false responses - it tries to tackle real suffering with metaphysical solutions. He goes on to say:

"Die Aufhebung der Religion als des illusorischen Glücks des Volkes ist die Forderung seines wirklichen Glücks."

This, too, seems pretty straightforward to me, but you might see 4 or 5 different things there. Religion teaches the people an illusory form of happiness, which doesn't actually change or even challenge the conditions of suffering, and must therefore be tossed out, for the people to ever achieve real happiness.

A fundamental difference here is that religious goodness is internally, individually, and fundamentally motivated. 'Good' is 'Good', and you as a Christian individual should choose to do Good. A goal of Marxism is to abolish that kind of fundamentalism and replace it with continuous criticism; creating a society that always questions, together, what good is, through the lens of dialectical materialism.

You might recognize this line of thinking* from what modern Europeans call the autonomous left wing, or what Marx and Trotsky called the Permanent Revolution, which Wikipedia helpfully comments on as "Marx outlines his proposal that the proletariat 'make the revolution permanent'. In essence, it consists of the working class maintaining a militant and independent approach to politics both before, during and after the 'struggle' which will bring the 'petty-bourgeois democrats' to power." Which sounds great, except it can also lead to purges, paranoia, and informant societies.

My entire point is that socialism and Christianity are entirely different beasts. One is a rich, layered mythology with an extremely deep academic and political history, but no modern critical or explanatory components.** The other is an academic theory of economics and politics, with all the tools of discourse of modern academia in its toolbelt, and a completely different critical and analytical goal.

TL;DR? Well, Jesus (in a lenient interpretation) taught that we should help the weak. Marx explained that the people should organize to eradicate the conditions that force weakness onto the people. Jesus
taught that greed would keep a man from heaven, Marx explained that religion, nationalism, tribalism and commodity fetishism blinded the people to its common materialist interests. Jesus taught that the meek will be rewarded for their meekness, and while on earth we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; Marx explained that meekness as a virtue is a way of preventing actual revolutionary change, and that dividing the world into the spiritual and the materialistic helped keep the people sedate and passive, which plays right into the hands of the Caesars.

*I'm just kidding, I know you don't recognize any of this


**There probably are modern scholars of Christianity who adapt and adopt some of the tools of modern academic discourse; I know too little about academic Christianity.

The article linked above mentions Röpke and Eucken as champions of free market capitalism, so to speak. Ironically, Bernie Sanders is quite in line with many of Walter Eucken's core ideas. For instance, Eucken declared legal responsibility to be an absolute necessity for competition within a market economy. Meaning that under Eucken's notion of capitalism, US prisons would be filled to the brim with white collar criminals from Wall Street and just about every multinational corporation, including Volkswagen.

Ludwig Erhard, credited by many to be the main figure behind the German "Wirtschaftswunder" (nothing wonderous about it), postulated real wage growth in line with productivity and target inflation as an imperative for a working social market economy. Again, very much in line with Bernie Sanders. Maybe even to the left of Sanders. A 5% increase in productivity and a target inflation of 2% requires a wage increase of 7%, otherwise your economy will starve itself of the demand it requires to absorb its increased production. You can steal it from foreign countries, like Germany's been doing for more than a decade now, but that kind of parasitic behaviour is generally frowned upon. Minimum wage in the US according to Erhard would be what now, $25-$30? So much for Sanders' $15...

Sennholz further mentions the CDU as a counterweight to the SPD. Well, the CDU's "Ahlener Programm" in 1947 declared that both marxism and capitalism failed the German people. In fact, it put significant blame for Germany's descent into fascism at the feet of the capitalistic system and called for a complete restart with focus NOT on the pursuit of profit and power, but the well-being of the people. They called for socialism with Christian responsibility, later watered down and known as social market economy or Rhine capitalism.

As for the economic policies conducted by the occupation forces: German industry, and large corporations in particular, were shackled for the role they played during the war. If you work tens of thousands of slaves to their death, you lose your right to... well, anything. If they had stripped IG Farben, Krupp and the likes down to the very bone, nobody could have complained. No economic liberties for the suppliers behind a genocide.

Next in line, the comparison with Germany's European neighbours. Sennholz wrote that piece in '55, so you can't really blame him for it. Italy had more growth from '58 onwards, France had more growth than its devastated neighbour from '62 onwards. The third Axis power, Japan, had significantly more growth from '58 onwards.

Why did some European and Asian countries grew much more rapidly than the US? Fair Deal? Nope, Bretton-Woods. Semi-fixed exchange rates caused the Deutsche Mark and the Yen to be ridiculously undervalued compared to the Dollar, thus increasing German and Japanese competitiveness at the cost of the US. Stable trade relations created by the semi-fixed exchange rates plus the highly expansive monetary policy in the US – that's what boosted Germany's economy most of all. Sort of like China over the last two decades, except we were needed as a bulwark against the evil, evil Commies, so the US kept going full throttle.

Our glorious policians tried the same policies (Adenauer/Erhard) in East Germany after reunification, even though global conditions were vastly different, and the result is the mess we now have over there. The entire industry was burned to the ground when they set the exchange rate too high, thus completely destroying what little competitiveness remained. Two trillion DM later, still no improvement. A job well done, truly.

Anyway, if anything, Bernie Sanders' program is closer to post-war German social market economic principles than to the East-German bastard of socialism, state capitalism and planned economy imposed by an autocratic system. However, even that messed up system produced significantly less poverty, both in quality and quantity, than the current US corporatocracy. No homelessness, no starvation, proper healthcare for everyone – reality in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). And despite the fact that they were used as cheap labour for western corporations, no less. My first Ikea shelf was produced by our oppressed brothers and sisters in the East. The Wall "protected" the West from cheap labour while letting goods pass right through – splendid membrane, that one.

PS: Since that article was written in '55, I have to mention one of my city's most famous citizens: Otto Brenner. He was elected head of the IG Metal, this country's most influential trade union, in 1956 after having shared the office since 1952. The policies he fought for, and pushed through, during his 16 years in charge of the union are very much in line with what Sanders is campaigning for.

PS: Art cannot discriminate or objectify anyone. People do that. Someone runs over someone with a car, is it the cars fault? Someone gets stabbed, do you ban knives? Someone publishes a sexual fantasy, should we ban all books? Feminists embrace marxism for this reason.

I grew up watching all manner of pornography. Larry Flint is one of my personal heroes. Yet I never once tried to use a woman like some kind of fleshlight. Although I noticed boys all around me without access to pornography poaching school-girls with lies and deceit and then breaking their hearts by never calling them back, or worse, leaving them with child and no support. THAT is what objectifying someone is, if you think TV and comic books is what causes these monkey-men to behave this way, that a little bit of censorship is going to transform them into empathetic intellectuals, I just want to let you know you're in for some disappointment.

I don't wanna sound ignorant when Chomsky clearly is better versed than I am, but when discusses Anarchy here, it sounds a whole heck of a lot more like my understanding of socialism/marxism than what I understand to be anarachy.

Am I the only one under the belief that Anarchy was the absence of any form of organized government, and that the notion of the people owning the means of production was no part of that, and a form of government in itself that presumably Anarchy was the antithesis to?

My problem is that I think you miss the real flaw when tying fundamentalist attitudes to organized religion. Particularly when you point out that following ideology X(say, atheism) renders one uniquely immune to said fundamentalism.

Zealotry and fundamentalism appear to be in our DNA. Declaring that ANY ideology, system or plan renders a group immune to that zealotry has historically been exactly how each new form of zealotry and fundamentalism is founded and kicked off. The followers of Lenin and Mao all rallied around ideologies of socialism/marxism to justify their atrocities. In particular, the rallying belief that socialism would uniquely create a government that would protect the interests of the people. No organized religion required there, they even used a lot of anti-religious rhetoric too.

My simple point is people claiming that uniqueness for their ideology is EXACTLY the problem and it angers me to see so many flaunting it as the solution.

Sorry for the delayed response. I got a bit busy this week, and didn't have the time/energy to dedicate that a response of this sort deserves. Thanks for your patience.

Your response suggests an adoption to Marxism which, in my opinion, is unmatched in the level of suffering it has caused, but leaving that aside...
In response to your bullet points:

#1. "ever wonder why there is an economics course and a business admin course? there is a reason for that.one is theory the other practical application. and economists get it wrong...and often."

This is the kind of thing Paul Krugman often says, and it's flat wrong. To the extent we have a free market, we have a successful exchange of goods and services at a fair and competitive price. To the extent to which we have socialism, with central planners, and governmental regulation, we have cronyism, plutocratic kleptocracy, and failure. The Austrian school of economics does a very good job of explaining -- step by step in a manner in which you can follow along using deductive logic, how such contradictions come about. Entrepreneurs are to Austrian economists as artists are to the best of art/literary critics. There's no discrepancy between theory and practice. They can clearly and accurately describe what entrepreneurs are doing. Unless you have studied Mises, you'll probably have little to no good idea as to what economics is or what it can or cannot do.

#2: fascism is, in fact, a type of socialism because it follows a socialist economic model.

#3: Yes, I've thought it through. Explain to me specifically how you arrived at your conclusions. Otherwise, you're just making assertions.

> "france is a democracy. they have capitalism AND
> socialism."

France has a mix of capitalism and socialism, not unlike the U.S. Again, to the degree that France has a free market, things work and to the degree that they have socialism, the problems arise and get worse, as they/we are seeing now. To the degree that they are socialist, they are a failure. Socialism is unsustainable because you have no economic calculation. (And the European Union, which includes France, is failing -- in case you haven't noticed. This video can provide you with the data you need to understand this.)

Socialism is planned chaos because the issue of economic calculation (and its absence) gets glossed over. The EU is partially socialist -- it's a mix -- so it can somewhat slow down the effects of socialist chaos, unlike full-blown socialist systems. But it is increasingly more socialist and the chaos increases.
To deal with this planned chaos, these mixed systems rely on Lord Keynes' theories and policies of credit expansion, which equates to basically "throwing money" at the problem.
But, (as the Keynes/Hayek rap video says) "there's a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it!"

(Quite honestly, I'm surprised that you're not for establishing stable rules for the banks. You know, so that they're no longer able to extend money/credit that they don't have without being charged with fraud.
Because if you were for such banking rules, then you would no longer support the Keynesian approaches upon which your ideology is resting. Personally, I think money and credit needs rules and, for this reason, I don't support socialism or central planning in the absence of economic calculation, which is only possible within a free market system.)

The credit expansion expands the circumference of the boom and bust cycle, slowing it down, extending the boom period, but setting things up for a worse bust. It's all very predictable. If some are still not convinced about Europe's failure, it is because even as bad as things are, the bust has not really hit. Yet, it will. Eventually.

Unlike the Dollar, the Euro is not the world's reserve currency, and there is no petro-euro like there is a petro-dollar. So Europe cannot delay the bust in the manner that the U.S. can. On the other hand, thanks to German objections, the credit expansion in Europe has not gone as high as in the U.S. so their bust may not be as disastrous as it can be for the U.S.

The boom and bust cycle cannot occur in an anarchy because you need a central bank with powers of credit expansion to make it happen.
The alternative explanation, the "animal spirits" (a la Lord Keynes) posits that all businesses suddenly make mistakes at the same time, and/or all consumers at the same time decide to stop buying, causing the bust. I doubt it. That's no explanation at all.

> "my point is that health care should be a collective project
> but i believe i also entertained a free market solution as well."

I think you need to define what you mean by "collective" because the free market is as collective as it gets. I don't think you grasp what the free market means (i.e., voluntary interactions that allow for economic calculation and involve zero violence, allowing for better service and cheaper prices). Unless you understand this, no further discussion will lead to very much.

You say some things should be done collectively. I say many things must be done collectively. That's the basic premise of Austrian economics, the division of labor. You cannot do everything yourself. That's one reason I say that the free market economy is as collective as it gets.

> "i am a dissident. an anarchist."

If you're an anarchist, then you don't believe in government, by definition. So you can't be a socialist, as socialism requires a government to manage things. Without government, the only thing left is voluntary exchanges, which is the definition of a free market, economic capitalism (not to be confused with sociological capitalism).

You shouldn't rely on economists to tell you how things are. See for yourself. Again, only the Austrian school (that I know of) enables you to follow deductively on your own and make rational sense of the market activity.

You say economists are "probably wrong." How do you know? Economics isn't mysterious heuristics and sociological prophesy. It's like mathematics. You don't need to "believe" me that 2 + 2 = 4. You can deduce it for yourself.

I think that if you can learn a few basic economic lessons (which you can easily verify for yourself), you'll understand better where I'm coming from. (Then you'll be a coherent anarchist and not sound so confused ).

If you are an "anarchist," then who do you want administering things if not the government?

Hayek was much more of an anarchist (again, the rap video:
"The question is who plans for whom? Do I plan for myself, or leave it to you? I want plans by the many, not by the few.")

An anarchist who thinks otherwise is not much of an anarchist, is he?

God is clearly not a static foundation on which humanity bases their morals. Any cursory examination of Christian history shows that interpretations of what a Godly foundation for a life advicates have varied wildly at least from era to era, if not person to person.

There has not only overriding agreement of right and wrong between Christians throughout the ages, but also between cultures regardless of religion. Every culture has basically the same laws; don't lie, don't cheat, don't kill, don't steal etc. This is pointing to the fact that God didn't just tell us what is moral and immoral in the bible, He wrote it on our hearts. However, you are right in that actions speak louder than words. If you want to look at Christian history, it's very plain that calling yourself a Christian doesn't make you a moral person. Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruits, and a lot of Christian fruit in history has been rotten. There has also been quite a bit of good fruit as well. However, you can't pin down whether God gave a moral law to the actions of sinful human beings when the bible actually predicts the massive apostasy and moral inconsistency that you are describing. Take a look at Matthew 24, for instance.

Is there a foundation for static morality without a God to give it to you? Of course there isn't. And again I'll ask where or when we were guaranteed any such thing.

Well, it seems you agree with Ravi after all. This is exactly his point, and mine. There is no foundation for morality (or meaning, etc) without God and therefore atheism is incoherent. Atheism leads to nihilism which is inconsistent with your own experience.

But lets say that we do deserve such certainty, it still begs the question of why this foundation for morality of yours seems to have a curiously diverse array of outcomes in terms of moral norms over the millennia.

It has a diverse array of outcomes because human nature is corrupt and we can only imperfectly follow Gods laws. It also has nothing to do with what we deserve, but what is true.

Oh wait, I forgot. Your take on this whole thing is actually the only correct one, because of a personal relevation from God - of course. I guess we can now ignore all those other people who felt they had the same thing, because they just weren't lucky enough to benefit from the secure foundation of morality you have found.

It's not my take, it's what Jesus taught us:

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So your argument is with Jesus and not with me. You ask Him whether this is true or not.

And yes, spending 20 minutes detailing how Hitler and Stalin may have used certain limited aspects of atheistic thought processes to reach conclusions that are clearly not necessary outcomes of such premises, not by a long shot, and then using that to discredit an entire world view - is indeed Reducto ad Hitlerum in every possible sense of the term.

As TheGenk said, that's weak man.

Hitler is debatable but Stalins regime was atheistic at its core and that isn't debatable. Atheism wasn't peripheral to it, it was the foundation. Stalin brutally imposed atheism on the populace, and killed millions of Christians who refused to deny Christ. Don't take my word for it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union

The history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and the elimination of religion.[1]

The state was committed to the destruction of religion,[2][3] and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted 'scientific atheism' as the truth that society should accept.[4][5]

Religious beliefs and practices persisted among the majority of the population,[4] in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognised its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war.[2][6]

just found out that "Fox News is now reporting that President Barack Obama’s just-released new campaign video that previews his new slogan, “Forward,” has “historical ties to Marxism, Socialism.”"

... but then again

"Forward is a leadership position in football, basketball, and rugby. The Forward is also a Jewish-American newspaper. Forward is also the name of several towns in Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Forward is also the name of a truck sold in the U.S. by Isuzu. And Forward is the name of an album recorded by American Idol semi-finalist Ayla Brown.

Interesting that Fox News and the Washington Times didn’t bother to make those sports, journalism, geographic, automotive, or musical references."

More here : http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/fox-news-obama-campaign-slogan-has-ties-to-marxism-socialism/politics/2012/05/01/38787

I get your point, I'm just saying that America has this irrational antipathy towards the name Marx, the label Marxism, and socialism and the like. All people know of it is the evil caricature and the demagoguery, and nothing about the real ideas behind it, thanks to the way it's been erased from our culture through 1984-style propaganda and demonization.

The Fight Club/Marx connection only really clicked for me when I watched this clip, and I wanted to try to use that realization as an opportunity to say "here, buried in your fondness for Fight Club is what Marxism is really about" in an effort to deprogram my fellow countrymen...

Or instead we can just focus on how wrong it was for me to dare try to label people, even as a rhetorical gambit to start a deeper conversation.

>> ^criticalthud:

Yes, I guess my point is, while i agree with most of what someone named jesus christ supposedly said, calling me a "Christian" wouldn't be terribly accurate, and would have a tendency to associate me with something more than just ideas.
and Karl Marx wasn't the first, present, or last person to think rationally.
perhaps Marx should sue for copyright infringement. ?

Yes, I guess my point is, while i agree with most of what someone named jesus christ supposedly said, calling me a "Christian" wouldn't be terribly accurate, and would have a tendency to associate me with something more than just ideas.

and Karl Marx wasn't the first, present, or last person to think rationally.

perhaps Marx should sue for copyright infringement. ?



>> ^NetRunner:

The main premise of the movie was the alienation inherent in capitalist societies.
The quote isn't "we are not our labels", it's:

You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

That's Marxism in a nutshell.
I'm always confused by the people who worry about "labels." They seem to think that if any label applies to them accurately, it's something bad. Well, being smart, kind, human, attractive, etc. are all labels too. For that matter, every aspect of who you are that could be conveyed in spoken or written language is by definition a label.
But fair enough, I'm mostly just trying to be provocative. People demonize "Marxism" in America so much it's silly. Nobody even knows what it is, because it's a taboo topic. Technically you aren't a "Marxist" unless you buy into the Marxian alternatives to capitalism (I don't), but it leaves you with some understanding that Karl Marx wasn't the anti-Christ, either.
After all, the philosophy of Tyler Durden is almost entirely based on Marxist critiques of capitalist society, and a lotta people dig Tyler Durden.
>> ^criticalthud:
So if we agree with a main premise of the movie that "we are not our labels" then we are necessarily labeled marxists?

@dystopianfuturetoday I guess the word Marxist still scares the bejeezus out of people.

Yes, it's more complex than an anti-commercialist screed, but then so is Marx's critique of capitalism.

Yes, by the end it's clear that this philosophy has led a band of proletariat men to wage a violent revolution against the hierarchy that enslaves them...again, just like Marx said they should.

To a younger me, the way I would have described the theme of the movie is freedom. We're not talking about bogus libertarian freedom, but that left-wing style freedom, the kind borne from the insight that "things you own end up owning you."

To a decade older me, it's not just a vague philosophy without a name anymore, it's the Marxist critique of capitalism. And the stuff at the end about violent revolution led by a charismatic (and fake!) dictator seems like a screenwriter's critique of the rest of Marxism.

It's been a while since I've seen Fight Club, but I kinda remember that Eddie Norton looked horrified at the very end, not triumphant. I think he'd finally had his dreams shattered, by the very act of realizing them.

The main premise of the movie was the alienation inherent in capitalist societies.

The quote isn't "we are not our labels", it's:

You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

That's Marxism in a nutshell.

I'm always confused by the people who worry about "labels." They seem to think that if any label applies to them accurately, it's something bad. Well, being smart, kind, human, attractive, etc. are all labels too. For that matter, every aspect of who you are that could be conveyed in spoken or written language is by definition a label.

But fair enough, I'm mostly just trying to be provocative. People demonize "Marxism" in America so much it's silly. Nobody even knows what it is, because it's a taboo topic. Technically you aren't a "Marxist" unless you buy into the Marxian alternatives to capitalism (I don't), but it leaves you with some understanding that Karl Marx wasn't the anti-Christ, either.

After all, the philosophy of Tyler Durden is almost entirely based on Marxist critiques of capitalist society, and a lotta people dig Tyler Durden.

>> ^criticalthud:

So if we agree with a main premise of the movie that "we are not our labels" then we are necessarily labeled marxists?

Remember when George W. Bush used to say the names "Osama bin Laden" and "Saddam Hussein" in close proximity to one another in order to transfer the fear many had of Osama to Saddam? That's a type of psychological manipulation called 'fear conditioning'. The point is to teach you to be afraid of something by associating it with something else that you are already afraid of. I sense the cold war has shaped your politics to a large degree - which is common among conservatives and conservative libertarians - so the word Marxism is likely something that causes you great fear. Through conditioning, your fear of Marxism has been projected onto the Democratic party by FOX news, Glenn Beck and the entire corporate media echo chamber. In reality, the Democratic party is in no way Marxist. It's actually quite conservative, economically speaking.

In order to illustrate my point, I'd like you to explain to me what you believe Marxism to be, and then to detail how, in your own words, you see the Democratic party as Marxist. If indeed this is a case of fear conditioning, you won't be able to do it.

Good luck.