Marxism Q&A

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Luv2H8

What MAKES Marxism fail? Is it that it is usually corrupted or is it just that it doesn't work?

Those questions are begging the question. They presuppose that Marxism failed, which of course I argue it hasn't.
In fact, that's not even entirely correct, because it's like saying that republicanism, democracy, capitalism, aristocracy.... have failed. A political philosophy cannot 'fail' in this sense. It could be deficient in explaining social circumstances, but it is not an 'attempt' which can 'fail.'
Now, the issues of applied Marxism in the world, its connections with the soviet Union, and its theoretical legitimacy are better posed in further questions, so I will answer further in those questions.

[Alan]

HOLY SHIT! I apologize in advance for writing so much. I got carried away but I don't want to take away anything.

Originally Posted by Entropic

How would Marxism handle pre-existing property, like the car or house that I already have?

Different tendencies would have different approaches to this, but strictly speaking, those objects are not the same as the Marxist concept of 'private property.'
These are possessions, which aren't taken away. Were a Marxist government to arise tomorrow and it pursues an orthodox Marxist platform, it would immediately collectivize the means of production and the land. These are private property, defined as an object from which one can derive capital. It would be hard to classify a car as private property in this sense. Generally a house too, unless we're talking about a big estate, in which case, probably you're screwed.

Originally Posted by Entropic

How would Marxism handle inheritance or family heirlooms?

This was one of the most discussed issues in the First International.The issue was posed by the German Social Democrats as a concern, and the were right to be concerned, as the general opinion was that inheritance should be completely abolished. Mikhail Bakunin was a most outspoken advocate for the abolition of inheritance altogether.
Marx offers a less confrontational, but also less specific response: It is foolish to talk about the abolition of inheritance. If a revolution is possible, expropriation will happen from the beginning.
Honestly, I do not find that answer satisfying, because declaring it a non-issue doesn't make it a non-issue.
What I personally infer from it is that if private property is expropriated, then there's no private property a family can inherit. In this sense it is indeed a non-issue. However, that doesn't account for possessions that are not private property in the Marxist sense, and I would assume/hope that those objects which have a sentimental value rather than a capital value, would be left to the family. This kind of inheritance does not counter a socialist agenda and it appeals to the humanist side of socialism.

How would Marxism handle people who do not want to live in a Marxist society?

Very tricky question.
The more orthodox answer to this question will probably be very cynic. Marx's answer to the criticism of abolishing private property is that ninety percent of the world does NOT have private property, and therefore this concern which is one of the hottest criticisms against Marxism is not an issue for most of humankind.
Equally, he probably would translate that attitude to this situation. Most people live in alienation in this society, and a frightening percentage of this alienated majority also live in misery. The question is just as important in this society as it is in a hypothetical Marxist society, but at least in a Marxist society the discontent won't be the overwhelming majority, and those who are discontent won't be so because of actual material distress, but merely for ideological differences.
If we add Gramsci's ideas, a socialist society won't exist until socialism becomes culturally hegemonic, and therefore accommodations could be made for the anti-socialist minority.
The overall answer is not very optimistic, but it's just rational and realistic: whatever compromises are made for those who don't accept socialism, can't be worse than our actual situation which offers no compromise against those who don't accept capitalism.

What is the incentive to work, in Marxism?

This is one of the most common questions, and it just logically extends from Marx's over-generalized ideal of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
There are three ideas I have to point out. They are not different solutions, nor are they mutually exclusive; rather, the answer would have to be a deliberation among the three.
First of all, so long as we do not live in a post-scarcity economy, wages and credit are still going to exist in a socialist economy. This basically is the Marxist division between a socialist nation and an eventual communist nation. All a socialist government can do is provide better and more just wages, but not abolish them. The concept of wages would be abolished at the same period as the concept of the state is also abolished.
Second, the best interpretation of "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is not a hopeful expectation that the people will accommodate their needs to the supply of society (therefore producing the legitimate question of "won't people just want more and give less? and if not, then society will force them to sacrifice their wants 'for the greater good'?) Rather, it means that society as a whole has to accommodating its needs to each of its individual's potential. A surprisingly underrepresented part of Marx's idealism is to allow each human individual to cultivate themselves and achieve their full creative potential. I mark that word a lot because Marx's idealist bases are explicitly centered on creative potential. Thus he says he wants a world where one can be a worker on the day, a family man at noon, a fisherman on the afternoon, and a poet at night.

Are there examples of successful Marxist societies/states/countries/nations?

That's debatable, but I'll mention some examples, which I believe ultimately were not successful, but at least showed the workings of a legitimate socialist society that could be self-sustaining were it not for external circumstances or small but crucial errors.
The Paris Commune has been the best example. Karl Marx called it the first proletarian society of the world. Unfortunately it had no opportunity of surviving against the counter-assault to Paris.
The Second International unified millions of workers, was the first and strongest advocate for the eight-hour labor day, and proposed the creation of the Labor Day in May 1. It almost succeeded in stopping the first World War through threatening a general strike, and it worked to a certain extent in Italy, Great Britain, and France, but not in Germany. In the end, proletarian internationalism lost against bourgeois nationalism, and workers felt more in tune with fellow Germans or fellow French, than they did with fellow workers.
Anarchist Spain during the civil war is one of the most during examples of a far left society working. It might not be strictly Marxist, but legitimate anarchist movements such as syndicalism and anarcho-communism work with the same parameters than Marxism. Both Bakunin and Marx acknowledge the importance of one in the other's philosophy.
In Seattle in 1919, a general strike halted the city, and immediately the labor unions created an organized committee that acted as an alternative government. They set up food distribution systems, distribution routes, they picketed several factories while occupying and re-opening others as they saw fit. But the strike was eventually called off by labor leaders themselves, the more reformist leaders at that.
Finally, let's not forget that the rise of industrial unionism was a Marxist success. Industrial Unions do not necessitate Marxist thought in their structure, but they only emerged (as opposed to trade unionism) from Marxist ideals.

[Alan]

Was the Soviet Union a Marxist country? Why or why not?

In the beginning it was, and ideologically Lenin really was a true successor of Marxist thought.
After the October revolution, political power was indeed located at the soviet level, and that's how it should have remained. However, different factions began to struggle (even before the Bolshevik v Menshevik split) which caused a civil war within the country. This gave a new opportunity to the royalist army to regain power, backed by numerous European countries.
Lenin became more authoritarian as he felt the need to consolidate his power to better fight the White Army. During and after that, he also persecuted the more openly dissenting groups within the Soviet Union, such as the anarchist Makhnovtchina in the Ukraine. Trotsky criticized Lenin for this, saying that the centralization of authority only obstacles the proletariat instead of helping them, but I don't think he would have been any better, and he was still the commander of the Red Army during this time.
After the civil war, being fought in urban environments, and the popular Red Army being composed of working class volunteers, the industrial working population of the Soviet Union was drastically reduced (20 million casualties). Lenin himself began a program of further centralization, going so far as to moving peasants to cities to become industrial workers. This offered them better living standards, but they lacked a proletarian upbringing; Lenin basically artificially created a new proletariat, an untrained working class.
He also compromised with the royalist bourgeoisie, giving them several privileges and restoring their business positions, so as to restart the economy.
From a political science point of view, these are all smart and necessary decisions for a leader of a country to do in these circumstances. It would be naive to think he should have remained true to his ideals against the grey reality of the situation. But at the same time it is clear the Soviet Union's infrastructure was far from being a Marxist infrastructure. At best, as long as Lenin was alive, it was a command economy nation hoping that someday, somehow, it could become a free socialist nation.

How can you like Obama?

Ah ha! I saw that!
Lesser of two evils I guess. He's not that bad anyway. In our circumstances and under the rules of this game, he's a pretty good president.

Was Nazi Germany a Marxist country? Why or why not?

Not at all. It is not Marxist at all, and I'm not saying that simply because I'm a Marxist. The first people Hitler targeted were communists, and the Nazi party's economical ideology was explicitly geared towards eliminating any trace of communism in Germany.
However, Nazi germany still had a command economy, so it is actually quite legitimate to think of fascism as being in a certain manner socialist, especially compared to a free-market economy. But this command economy is called corporatism: corporations are boosted by the government to compete in the free market, while German workers have limited rights in their working environment, so as to 'not harm the economy'
Prohibiting free press, strikes, and unionization are antithetical to Marxist socialism put into praxis (that goes to Veneuela and Cuba too)

Did Marx make any predictions? If he did, how did those predictions turn out?

Marx made a lot of predictions. Most of the predictions he made about capitalism are quite correct. One of the best examples is how capitalist production necessarily stalls periodically (recessions and depressions) and these only get bigger and bigger. He also dipped a little in the idea of stable capitalism being temporarily possible through colonialism (a theory further expanded by Lenin on Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism)
And he even went against a common socialist idea in his time. Socialists, particularly Lasallean socialists, believed in a concept called the Iron Law of Wages, which said that despite temporary victories, wages eventually tend to fall to the bare minimum necessary for subsistence. It is obvious that this looks attractive from a socialist point of view: it proves how unforgivable evil capitalism is. But Marx proved that this "Iron Law" does not exist. There are legitimate reasons to fight against capitalism, so we should not believe in a false 'law' that is proven to be mistaken just to make capitalism look less redemptive.

On the other hand, Marx's magnum opus, Das Kapital, is clearly outdated and very wrong in many assumptions even in his time, like the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. There is speculation that Marx didn't finish Das Kapital because he realized he was wrong all along.
Numerous other Marxist economists have amended, contradicted, or completely abandoned Marx's theories on capital in the name of better theories that explain the workings of Marxian economics and the implications of capitalist economics in today's world.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger2

Isn't Marxism like out of date or something?

There's quite some truth to that. But just as well, the validity of the question is only proportional to the realization that capitalism is an anachronism.
Primordial Marxism was responding specifically to the economic situations of Great Britain and Germany (Marx believed the revolution would first happen in Great Britain)
Marx only amended his theories very late in life to account for a globalized economy, and as I previously mentioned, his work of Das Kapital is just objectively wrong.
Theorists like Weber (I completely forgot to include him in the theoretical marxist tendency), Pannekoek, and the members of the Frankfurt School of Marxism dedicated their lives to reconciling Marxism with the present world and more specific circumstances, and I believe they made an excellent work in that.

The reason I say that Marxism is somewhat anachronistic only in respect to capitalism being downright obsolete, is that Marx couldn't begin to imagine the processes of late capitalism. Liberal economist Joseph Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, even acknowledges the contradictions and temporal limitations of capitalism and presents his opinion of how it will end, which isn't Marxist, but still an interesting reading.



I have to continue later, but I'm almost catching up.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Entropic

If he gets a castle and I don't get a castle, I'm gonna be pissed.

Can Marxism guarantee every citizen their own Castle and/or the inalienable right to kick Deadman in the balls?

[Luv2H8]

If they get a castle can I get 32 Legions of imps?

[Ben Lahnger]

Can Marxism prevent Hollywood from converting films that were shot in 2D into 3D for promotion and profit purposes? Wait, don't answer that ... I have a feeling Hollywood wouldn't exist as we know it under a Marxist government, right?

[Despanan]

Playing off JCC's questions:

"Does Marxism discourage exceptionalism with regards to the people living in a marxist society? And if not, does Marxism encourage exceptionalism among it's citizens. How so?"

[Alan]

I'm sorry, it's going to take me more time to answer than I thought. But I left off at a very important question so here it goes:

Originally Posted by HumanePain

Can Marxism scale to global proportions in today's world and still work?
I am very interested to read the response to my question because it seems that one the main components for it to work (which happens to be the main reason it is considered evil by capitalist nations) is that it is all or nothing: the whole world must be taken over by communism for it to be true Marxism, otherwise it dies an eventual, corrupted death. Of course, this is also a handy excuse: "It failed in Russia because the whole world wasn't communist", "It was corrupted in China because they had to deal with capitalist nations" etc.

I combined your two posts, HP, because the second one gives perspective to the question of the first post.
But don't you think your question was saying the opposite than your explanation did? That's not a bad thing.
In fact if the question is "Can Marxism work at a global scale?" then the answer is a simply "Yes! In fact it's the only way it can work."
But you yourself said that Marxism seems to be all or nothing; either all the world is socialist or there is no socialism.
The bigger questions, then, are those implied in the explanation:
Why does Marxism depend on a world-scale revolution? How could we centralize the whole world? And isn't it a little too convenient to say that if socialism hasn't worked yet it's because not all the world is socialist?

Ask me further if I misinterpreted you by posing these questions but I think you won't disagree.

The answer to the first question is not something inherent of socialism qua socialism, but it is inherent in the Marxist concept of historical materialism, and we can see that that is our present political reality.
Globalization is an inevitable and desirable outcome of human progress. One of the main contradictions (to use Hegelian terms) of feudalism which led to its end is that feudalism could not take into consideration the reality of globalization. Capitalism can only thrive in a world whose doors are open; socialism too, only that the doors that are opened are not merely market oriented.
So it's not that Marxism merely finds beneficial world-scale socialism. Globalization - the emphasis on a global context rather than a regional one - is not a contingent process that Marxism has to account for, but instead is essential in its philosophy, no different than worker self-management.
Economically speaking, we can see how this is true, because there is no way one single nation, no matter how big and diverse in resources it is, could produce all of the resources it could enjoy. The only way to enjoy the world's resources in an efficient manner without speculation and profiteering on universally necessary resources is with a globally planned structure for distribution.

How to centralize the whole world? By now we must understand that it would be an unfounded fear to think that this implies totalitarianism. Centralization doesn't mean that everything is planned by an elite echelon that tells all the world what to do.
What I am saying, however, is that many economic sectors are in fact more efficient when centralized - when guided by planning rather than competition. This is most obvious with some industries that are already public services, such as providing electricity and water, but it is also true to several private industries, such as the agricultural and oil industries. This centralization does not imply a complete subordination of every industry to a bureaucracy, an economic approach that the Soviet Union used, because subordinating the workers of one industry to the same economic model than the workers from another industry makes absolutely no sense at all.
Mao didn't even understand this simple fact, and with little knowledge of metallurgy and no understanding of industrial planning, China's economy tanked during its 'Great Leap Forward' in large part due to its faith in selling steel which ended up being of very low quality as it wasn't manufactured in actual factories! So he subordinated every commune to a politically central command of producing steel, but this command didn't offer any actual economic centralization, leaving an amorphous, artificial, inexperienced mass of so-called 'steelworkers' that could never supply goods of any value.

Finally, isn't it just a little too convenient to claim that socialism hasn't worked because not everyone's a socialist? Isn't it almost tautological? It basically accounts to saying socialism hasn't worked because it hasn't worked.
I disagree. I have explained above why we say that Marxism has to be global and it is obvious that this is not an excuse to rationalize why Marxism hasn't survived where tried, but in fact if anything it's a criticism to where socialism is implemented without internationalist goals.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Despanan

I've actually got a real one here:

Speaking practically, what systems does Marxism have in place which protect it from abuse/corruption and why were these systems unsuccessful in the case of the Soviet Union and Red China?

To be honest, in strict Marxist Orthodoxy, there are none.
Marx did write a lot on the responsibility of a socialist state, but his end goal was an end to politics and the responsibility of socialist parties and parliamentary struggle is to increase socialist programs and make the state liable to democratic demands. It is clear that he concerned himself with the social and economic aspects of society, whereas politics are only the social constructs by which the ruling classes perpetuate their desired circumstances.
Technically, this is true, and it's basically the point of structural Marxism. But a more Gramscian understanding of politics (which I would also call using common sense) tells us that politics is not some sort of 'evil tool' by the exploiters. Rather, politics ARE those social constructs which dictate institutional structures and parameters; they normalize certain social and economic relations. But this means that there are still politics under a worker state.
Maybe the concept of the state will really dissolve some day, but a socialist state still works under a certain structure, and even if this structure is more democratic and therefore more organic, if the laws and institutions of this imagined socialist state are more responsive to democratic demands, we still would need to speak of the structure of these socialist institutions and how they work and how they change.

What I am getting at here is that although Marxism strives to be a socialism from below, where politicians must genuinely represent the demands of the people, that still does not solve institutional problems. The abuse of power in the Soviet Union and China were almost exclusively due to their emphasis on bureaucracies. A more democratic society - again, the famous socialism from below - would probably get rid of corruption and abuse of power, but only by individuals.
What of the abuse of powers by necessary institutions themselves? I don't think Marx ever wrote on the branches of government. He spoke of parliament, so he understood the legislative body, but do we not need to separate it from the judicial body? Montesquieu's thoughts do not contradict Marxism, but they merely explain the workings of one approach to government, one which is valid so long as it is desirable.

Long story short, the only actual answer Marx gives to the concern of corruption and the abuse of power is further democracy and responsibility. That is definitely an answer to the question, but he never bothered explaining us how to further democracy and how to make the socialist government more responsible to demands by its people.
For that, we really must implement the answers which make more sense for our circumstances. We can maintain a separation of powers in government like Montesquieu's. We can merge the legislative and executive branches. We can adopt common law or continental law. A state can be a federation of confederation. Et cetera.
The workings of the non-economic side of the state are left very ambiguous, but it's good that it's ambiguous, because Marxism (or any political philosophy for that matter) should make an absolute stance on matters of expediency, whose answers will always be by definition arbitrary and contextual.

[HumanePain]

Originally Posted by Alan

I combined your two posts, HP, because the second one gives perspective to the question of the first post.

'Tis why I added it. =)

Originally Posted by Alan

But don't you think your question was saying the opposite than your explanation did? That's not a bad thing.

Yes, usually happens when I post before I think! So I realized this and thus added my 2nd post to make you aware I realized this, and that the 2nd question was the real question I had distilled from my continue thinking and research about the question. You make me think dude and that is a good thing!

Originally Posted by Alan

In fact if the question is "Can Marxism work at a global scale?" then the answer is a simply "Yes! In fact it's the only way it can work."
But you yourself said that Marxism seems to be all or nothing; either all the world is socialist or there is no socialism.
The bigger questions, then, are those implied in the explanation:

Agreed. On to the real meat!

Originally Posted by Alan

Why does Marxism depend on a world-scale revolution? How could we centralize the whole world? And isn't it a little too convenient to say that if socialism hasn't worked yet it's because not all the world is socialist?

Ask me further if I misinterpreted you by posing these questions but I think you won't disagree.

The answer to the first question is not something inherent of socialism qua socialism, but it is inherent in the Marxist concept of historical materialism, and we can see that that is our present political reality.
Globalization is an inevitable and desirable outcome of human progress. One of the main contradictions (to use Hegelian terms) of feudalism which led to its end is that feudalism could not take into consideration the reality of globalization. Capitalism can only thrive in a world whose doors are open; socialism too, only that the doors that are opened are not merely market oriented.
So it's not that Marxism merely finds beneficial world-scale socialism. Globalization - the emphasis on a global context rather than a regional one - is not a contingent process that Marxism has to account for, but instead is essential in its philosophy, no different than worker self-management.
Economically speaking, we can see how this is true, because there is no way one single nation, no matter how big and diverse in resources it is, could produce all of the resources it could enjoy. The only way to enjoy the world's resources in an efficient manner without speculation and profiteering on universally necessary resources is with a globally planned structure for distribution.

How to centralize the whole world? By now we must understand that it would be an unfounded fear to think that this implies totalitarianism. Centralization doesn't mean that everything is planned by an elite echelon that tells all the world what to do.
What I am saying, however, is that many economic sectors are in fact more efficient when centralized - when guided by planning rather than competition. This is most obvious with some industries that are already public services, such as providing electricity and water, but it is also true to several private industries, such as the agricultural and oil industries.

The light went on when I read this: he's right! So in the case of the U.S.A. a (pseudo) state controlled monopoly has worked, for decades.

Originally Posted by Alan

This centralization does not imply a complete subordination of every industry to a bureaucracy, an economic approach that the Soviet Union used, because subordinating the workers of one industry to the same economic model than the workers from another industry makes absolutely no sense at all.
Mao didn't even understand this simple fact, and with little knowledge of metallurgy and no understanding of industrial planning, China's economy tanked during its 'Great Leap Forward' in large part due to its faith in selling steel which ended up being of very low quality as it wasn't manufactured in actual factories! So he subordinated every commune to a politically central command of producing steel, but this command didn't offer any actual economic centralization, leaving an amorphous, artificial, inexperienced mass of so-called 'steelworkers' that could never supply goods of any value.

So what China should have done is import steel working knowledge from the workers of other nations? Is that the lesson we learn from history?

Originally Posted by Alan

Finally, isn't it just a little too convenient to claim that socialism hasn't worked because not everyone's a socialist? Isn't it almost tautological? It basically accounts to saying socialism hasn't worked because it hasn't worked.
I disagree. I have explained above why we say that Marxism has to be global and it is obvious that this is not an excuse to rationalize why Marxism hasn't survived where tried, but in fact if anything it's a criticism to where socialism is implemented without internationalist goals.

I think the smaller implementations of Marxism around the world show potential, but it is the larger failures that to me highlight the eventual limit of a Marxist government.
The resources of huge nations (and ultimately the world) are so enormous that a completely different set of politics comes into play, a set that overwhelms all but a few individuals of high integrity and character, such that any one elevated from the proletariat to eh central planning committees would find themselves "swimming with sharks" and forced to compromise to the detriment of the masses (at the global scale that is to say).

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question Alan. I learned a hell of a lot. I also have new food for thought.

[Starke von Oben]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Ireland was founded by Marxists.

Complete bullshit by an Irish Marxist revisionist.


BTW, National Socialism IS left wing: simply calling it 'Totalitarianism' is mediocre argument at best. The Nazis created a welfare state, had a belief in creating a utopia via the guidance of an all powerful ruling party but took a different outlook to the Marxist socialists who were internationalists. Socialism was not some internationalist phenomena before Marx came around, and it is only the Marxists who say otherwise. National Socialism does exactly what it says on the tin: it is Socialism on a National level, rather on an an international level.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Starke von Oben

Socialism was not some internationalist phenomena before Marx came around, and it is only the Marxists who say otherwise.

Cool, so Marx was an ever more awesome motherfucker than we Marxists give him credit for?
Awesome.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Starke von Oben

Complete bullshit by an Irish Marxist revisionist.

It's a well documented fact the the leaders of the 1916 Uprising were all Marxist. James Connolly, Pearse, and the rest often quote Marx in many of their writings.

These views were also carried by Michael Collins and de Valera, who were responsible for creating the Irish Constitution.

This is basic Irish history. If you went to school here, you would know.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

Well this has been very informative. Thank you Alan. I now have a rebuttal when capitalists say, "You want to take property! You're gonna kick people out of there homes!" Aside from, "you're a knob and you know perfectly well what I meant."

[Alan]

I never got back on this. The debate happened last week. Honestly, it was meh.
I felt I prepared too much for nothing. I debated against an anarchist and a free market capitalist. I made an impassioned speech, I explained how Marxism implies democracy and humanism by necessity. I detailed dialectical materialism and historical materialism as a way to interpret history.
I felt proud.
And then the capitalist just said let the free market take care of stuff and the anarchist preached from an inconsistent ethical high horse. Half of the time I thought to myself "I could defend their positions better than they are doing!"

And then the Q&A came about. I thought we were only going to be the philosophy majors and was prepared and excited to defend the validity of dialectical materialism and the pillars of Marxism. But the people who didn't know shit outnumbered us two to one, maybe three to one.
I ended up defending the mere concept of socialism. Half of them couldn't go beyond their own middle class upbringing. They kept asking the same questions you can assume, the same inane pseudo-libertarian rambling that why should people give up their 'freedoms', despite the constant reminder that hundreds of millions necessarily live without the most pressing freedoms and the reminder that this argument is only speaking of "freedom to own property" which the overwhelming population does not enjoy anyway.

You guys asked me better questions than most people in the debate. I want to answer the ones I still haven't answered but I'm gonna have to wait after finals.

[vindicatedxjin]

Every time Alan posts anything I can't help skipping everything else but his signature...and then I just start cracking up!

[donmara]

Hi, I'm new here and have several questions in regards to marxism.

What is dialectical materialism and does it hold any relevance to present day society ?

How does marxist economics work ? How does production and distribution in a large society occur without market laws of supply and demand ?

What benefits does marxism offer when contrasted with capitalism ?

What are Marxism's own shortcomings or disadvantages when dealing with society ?

In your opinion, is marxist economics (communism) inevitable, and why ?

[Alan]

I'm off from the stress of school now, and I really wanted to keep answering these questions, plus it's less a wate of time than playing videogames

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

If the governments of the world were predominantly Marxist, how would natural disasters like the recent earthquakes be dealt with? In other words, how does Marxism address the area of international aid?

(This may just be a case of me not understanding the mechanism of a Marxist government, but I thought I would ask.)

Actually that question confuses me. I would have taken for granted that anyone can assume how a Marxist government would take care of a natural disaster: by immediately taking care of its people.
The free market cannot account for natural disasters at all. There's no economic interest in humanitarian aid. For the sake of objectivity I will mention that there are two economic interests in humanitarian aid: good PR, and managing infrastructure. But the former is empirically shown to be small and ineffectual, and the latter is too expensive to be actually a reality - I mean we're talking about an idea like "we're gonna rebuild this part of New Orleans so that it's our private property."
Humanitarian aid is always either governmental aid or non-profit organization aid. Humanitarian aid is by definition socialist. Venezuela maintains a portion of its budget directed towards foreign aid. Not in currency but in goods. For example it exports oil and sells it in lower income neighborhoods in New York at a loss.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by JCC

How would a Marxist government effectively distribute adequate supplies to the people based upon requirement? The market allows people to purchase as they see fit, how much decentralisation is necessary to accurately distribute goods without leaving it to the judgment of the individual consumer?

That's the million-dollar question.
Maybe in a post-scarcity economy, and under distinct social conditions, a world based on abilities and needs will be possible, but according to strict Marxist theory, we have to go through socialism before achieving communism, so Marx himself made a mistake in expecting a perfectly free economy from the beginning.
There is more legitimacy to Guevara's "New Man" than we give him credit for: Imagine a promise that if you just dedicate four hours of your day to working for your sisters and brothers, so that you will never be hungry and neither will anyone keep dying from simple neglect, wouldn't you prefer that than working eight hours for the vague promise (only kept to half of the world) that ONLY YOU won't stay hungry for now?
But private economic ambition still has to be accounted for. Marx liked capitalism in the sense that it constantly revolutionizes itself, because it demands competition to survive, even though that is at the same time its death (this is what makes capitalism a historical event). If economic ambition stops being useful, it will become extinct by itself, but so long as individual ambition still fires a socialist economy, then there are still reasons for a socialist government to promote individual non-exploitative economic competition.
Such was Cuba's plan during the seventies, which allowed farmer markets and gave full control of peasants' and workers' production after their quota is met. I personally agree with that idea quite a bit. Set up a quota to assure that everyone in the country can be safe from squalor for the time to come, and then everything produced afterward is in the absolute entitlement of the workers of that industry. The problem with capitalism is that the workers produce many times what they earn, especially in developing countries, so we immediately know from the start that it's a reality that industries can produce several times more than they need to produce.

How would a Marxist regime offer inessential luxury items to the population, or cater to specific needs/preferences such as gluten-free, wheat-free, vegan etc. without the independence that markets offer? Is it inevitable that the production of luxury or niche items will stagnate under a fully Marxist regime? Is Marxism a society built only on essentials, and can such a society ever be prosperous or happy?

This question is somewhat addressed with the above one. An economically centralized state can still allow many informal economic sectors (in fact I argue that in places like Latin America this is the ONLY current way a socialist state could exist). However, it is also true that the concept of luxury items as we know it will suffer terribly.
Marxism is a humanist philosophy as much as it is an economic philosophy, after all. Happiness in the eyes of Marxism shouldn't come and doesn't come from material possessions. The rich don't enjoy life any more than the poorest people in the world. This is because real happiness comes through leisure, commodity, and personal relationships.
Accordingly a society that values capital and luxury should be abolished because it doesn't really try to make people happy (not that I'm not saying it doesn't make some people happy; only that that happiness is a contingency that has nothing to do with capitalism). Instead, we build a society whose concern is precisely fomenting the conditions for happiness. After we make sure we all enjoy a certain degree of commodity, we could work on increasing out degree of commodity, or rather increasing our leisure and time for personal relationships. Capitalism only takes into consideration one of these three, and the role of happiness in it is only contingent. The other two happen in a capitalist society but only in spite of capitalism, not thanks to it.
A clear picture of what I mean is this - do you see money as a means to an end or as an end itself?
In conclusion, luxury as we know it will definitely disappear. How can there be economic status symbols where everyone is equal? How can there be genuine frivolities when we can use that labor in more pressing needs?
Basically, it's wrong to have a socialist government such as East Germany in which a family only gets a car after a period of three to five years, but it's not wrong to find multi-million industries like designer clothes and fancy perfumes as wasteful.



(I'll respond to to the third one later today)

[Despanan]

Basically, it's wrong to have a socialist government such as East Germany in which a family only gets a car after a period of three to five years, but it's not wrong to find multi-million industries like designer clothes and fancy perfumes as wasteful.

Wait, so who gets to decide what's "wasteful", both fashion and "fancy" perfumes can easily be considered art forms. Theatre and music are also multi-million dollar industries, are they wasteful?

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Wait, so who gets to decide what's "wasteful", both fashion and "fancy" perfumes can easily be considered art forms. Theatre and music are also multi-million dollar industries, are they wasteful?

Woah. Deep question. My examples can be justified in that it was actually a conscious act to mention designer clothes and fancy perfumes. I consider fashion and perfumes an art form. that's why I didn't call them wasteful; just the particular industries whose importance derives more from its being a status symbol than actual effort. Just think of how much more important it is in this society to have a Rolex than a knockoff that looks exactly the same and still works, but is spelled with two Ls.
It is obvious that Marxists don't rile against art - we just have to look at people like Orozco, Goddard, and Eisenstein - and Trotsky even championed "bourgeois art" (as opposed to what a lot of Leninists called "proletarian art" as if it was the only legitimate form of art)
But the question of where one draws the line is a legitimate question. Nevertheless, whether in a socialist or capitalist society, it is an economic truth that art takes a secondary role in one's life where physical necessities aren't accounted for. One needs to be able to survive before he can worry about how to live.
In this sense, we can argue what is wasteful and what isn't: if if resources can be better allocated to providing breakfasts to children in a city than into making a blockbuster, the decision is quite obvious.

[donmara]

Wishing my question could be answered..

[gothicusmaximus]

Originally Posted by Alan

just the particular industries whose importance derives more from its being a status symbol than actual effort. Just think of how much more important it is in this society to have a Rolex than a knockoff that looks exactly the same and still works, but is spelled with two Ls.

I like the rest of your post fine, but you've obviously never owned a Rolex.

[Count_Grozny]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

I've actually wanted to see these questions answered as well. I'm curious about Marxism and I'm still waiting on Grozny to let me read the Communist Manifesto.

But yeah, Entropic's questions seem pretty solid.

I actually have two copies of it now. I could probably mail you one. In the meantime I'll send you some stuff on facebook.