Marx, our present crisis and the way out

Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points the way out (Guardian)

This article is intriguing. It is adapted from Yanis Varoufakis’s introduction to The Communist Manifesto, published by Vintage Classics on 26 April.

Good but long article. I didn't make it to the end. Just my opinion, but I think capitalism and communism are doomed to failure as long as humankind remains inherently selfish. All movements carry the seeds of their destruction. I think of Animal Farm. Maybe I'm just feeling particularly bleak this morning.

I do find hope through my faith in God because it constantly calls me to account.

I liked it. But I'm not a fan of capitalism or is its excesses anyway. The way of the multinationals is a sociopathic destroy everything or everyone in its path way. The only goal is more power and more accumulation but those aren't infinite quantities or to put another way there's a point of saturation where something will drown in its own greed.

>3 lriley: I don't disagree with your point about the excesses of capitalism. But a study of the Soviet Union will demonstrate that communism is no better. I can't say about China because -- at least in my mind -- it's neither pure communism or pure capitalism. Again, these systems are doomed to failure due to human nature.

Human traits of selfishness and altruism are what enabled us to survive and flourish as a species. We're at a tipping point in history caused by a mixture of overpopulation, use of resources, pollution, global warming. If we are to survive we need to suppress our selfishness and maximize altruism. I don't see that happening....

>3 lriley: there's a point of saturation

Yes, I think the need for constant expansion is inherent to capitalism, and that has now passed a point where it is no longer sustainable (if it ever was).

>4 pmackey: I don't disagree with your point about the excesses of capitalism. But a study of the Soviet Union will demonstrate that communism is no better

True, and near the end of the article it does begin to address that. The point that I took from the article is that the Marxist analysis could be a tool for understanding the current crisis (the "tipping point" which many people are still in denial about) and giving some clues as to how to reach a fairer and thus more sustainable society, but certainly not by returning directly to models which have also already failed.

Looking to Marxism for solutions to problems caused by capitalism is not likely to have widespread support in the (at least) the U.S. I suspect it's too easily dismissed by capitalists for two reasons: The ones benefiting from capitalism are interested in continuing the system, and regular citizens won't see the value of learning from a failed (or perceived to be failed) system.

I'm not an economist (in any way, shape or form). Most of it is too intricate for me to clearly understand. That said, I would invite open discussion between economists, political scientists, sociologists, and the public on the benefits of a revision of capitalism. The world's wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few people (1 percent?) is not healthy or sustainable. Sooner or later the proletariat will get pissed and revolt.

On the one hand you have people surviving in shanties and ghettos, and on the other you have the rich and elite. The idealist in me says there should be more balance. From my understanding, there's less of a disparity between incomes of CEOs in Germany and the workers. Still a big gap, but more reasonable to me than in the U.S. For example, why does a business executive need $50 million a year instead of say, $10 million. Either way your still rich. Take a little of that excessive pay and lower the cost of your product to offset the high cost of labor in developed countries. Maybe pay workers better or at least give them meaningful health benefits.

Enough ranting for me for now.... Thanks for listening.

>6 pmackey:

I think the point made in the article is not simply that there is a lack of balance and a truly shameless disparity, but that it's not working (the "tipping point" may already have been passed), and that so far most analyses are failing to get to grips with it. The suggestion is that the Marxist analysis is closer to the truth than many would like to admit (and certainly much closer than it was during the heyday of its popularity - this is not "popular" Marxism).

>6 pmackey:. Michael Moore illustrates your last point in Where to Invade Next.

>7 John5918: Okay... my takeaway is I'm going to have to make time to read article referenced.

>8 2wonderY: I don't want to be divisive. Really. But I will no more willingly listen to Michael More than I will Donald Trump. Both are equally repulsive in their way.

#4--FWIW I would probably more identify as a socialist with anarchist leanings---I'm no fan of Soviet style communism---at the same time I agree with the writer of the article that as far as Russia and it's subsequent satellite states went it was hijacked by Stalin and his cronies to serve their own ends. IMO pressures from the capitalist states surrounding Russia at the time helped nurture a siege mentality within that only made things easier in the end for Stalin and his cronies to take almost total control over the state. In more benign hands it could have should have worked out much better---though it also should be said there will always be problems no matter the system. Plain and simple--power corrupts.

After botching the Greek bailout, the Ducati-riding game theorist has lost some credibility.

Hmmm – perhaps it's time to have another go at Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, or at least Part 2: "Can Capitalism Survive?" I didn't get far as an undergrad in my compulsory first-year soc-sci course.

Also, I'm part way through, and can recommend, Shaun Walker's The Long Hangover, which has lots to say about the Russian siege mentality.

Marx was right about everything.

"Marx was right about everything." (14)

Iʻm assuming the above was said sarcastically. One thing Marx notoriously got wrong was that
Spain, Turkey, AND Russia (!) would be the last countries to move from the capitalist into the socialist phase. And, of course, he didnʻt foresee the two world wars, but then who, of his time did? It wouldnʻt have surprised him that capitalists would start shooting each other. His belief about Spain, Turkey and Russia was probably on the grounds that those 3 were not even fully into the capitalist stage. They were also the least "European". And "socialist", not "communist" was the Russiansʻ word for the stage they were entering. Communism was to be a later stage -- the bright future.
In the real world, Spain had a few years of socialism some 40 years after Marxʻs death; Spanish socialism lasted a few years and was ended by Francoʻs invasion, but after Francoʻs death Spain reverted to a (more or less) democracy, in which Socialists were a major party. Russia and most of its empire moved into
their version of Marxism in the second decade of the 20th century; Turkey also a "more-or-less democracy", has remained proto-capitalist. but, nominally at least, moved from
being a secular Islamic society to being a Fundamentalist Muslim society (or at least that is the way the West describes it.). So Marx was hardly a "prophet" of the next centuryʻs political future.

I absolutely agree with >14 barney67: - Louis was right about everything - his crew knew where to put their effort with respect to good engineering and where to minimize effort where it didn't matter. The end result, as we all know, was a very long production run of inexpensive but extremely durable trains that dominated the low end price range of the toy train market from the late 1930's to the early 1960's. The opening lines of Louis's manifesto are well known to the world of train collectors..."One of the many Marx toys. Have you all of them?"

I thought you meant Groucho Marx.

I too assumed Barney was trying to be sarcastic. Of course nobody is suggesting that Marx got everything right. I suppose in the polarised culture-war identity-politics either/or zero-sum right/wrong society in which we currently appear to live, it is difficult for many of us to accept that there might be some good, some value, some utility to be found even in opposing viewpoints.

"I thought you meant Groucho Marx (17)

Iʻm reminded of an anecdote from the 1960s about the capable left wing writer Daniel Cohn-Bendit. When asked if he was a Marxist, he said,"yes". Then he was asked "Of what tendency* of Marxism?" He replied: "The Groucho Tendency."

*tendency: seemed to be a cogent word in the 60s and 70s, that now seems to have lost its cogency