Socialist Conspiracy at BYU, according to parents

[_Droopy]

But Beastie, you said:

My God. I actually agree with whyme on something.

You were responding to:

Marx never said that democracy leads naturally to communism. To make this assumption, one needs to assume that capitalism is democracy. And of course, it isn't at all. What Marx did say, is that capitalism because of its internal contradictions and because of the struggle between worker and capitalist will lead to socialism.

Capitalism is far from democratic. Just look at the United State where there are two political parties who compete for influence, and yet both parties represent the capitalist ideology.

Not to mention the enslavement of others by capitialism to enhance the capitalist market through colonialism and imperialism and low wages.

So what here do you agree with, and what do you not agree with?

[_Droopy]

Republican Mormons are an interesting lot. I have had many arguments with them. Basically they are hypocrites.

Oh, how so (where will Beastie be now that why me has essentially said that LDS Republicans are inauthentic/unrighteous Mormons? Will the goose and gander be reunited here?)?

I have often been amazed just how republican Mormons can support welfare square and the lds' welfare system and yet, be against welfare for the poor in their society. It just doesn't make sense.

Oh, I see now. You just do not understand the vast differences between the Church's welfare system, and the concept of welfare within the gospel, and the concept and practice of welfare in the World.

You're problem here, why me, isn't the hypocrisy of LDS conservatives (who you should not a priori conflate with Republicans), but your own ignorance of gospel welfare principles as they stand over against the secualar forms.

However, liberal capitalism creates poverty or the illusion of wealth in the middle class.

Demonstratable, empirical, historical, and theoretical nonsense of the highest order (or really, of the most fundamental kind). The ease with which this long discredited Marxist twaddle can be surgically dismantled stands in stark contrast to its long history of intellectual acceptability among the west's decadent intelligentsia. The easy dismantling of Marxist economic theory has by now become a rather passe pastime among serious classical liberal students of the subject, even while all would admit (and why me proves) the continued necessity of so doing.

Marxist economics aren't even a serious attempt to comprehend the most rudimentary principles of economics and human economic behavior, which makes the sophistication and complexity of Marxian analysis all the more interesting (for what it does claim as for what it gets, most of the time, completely wrong).

Without volunteerism, the american system of social darwinist capitalism would fall like a house of cards. Its roots are in greed, selfish individualism and the survival of the fittest. However, through altruist volunteerism, the system survives.

This is about as laughably uncomprehending of both free market economics and the particular American experience with it as one could be without devolving into pure intellectual farce.

American "capitalism" is not "social Darwinist". Social Darwinism was a philosophy that made a brief appearance here in the Progressive Era of the 1920s and then disappeared. It has nothing to do with the classical liberal tradition upon which the nation and a free market social order is grounded.

"Capitalism" has nothing to do with greed. Greed is an individual trait or characterological feature that is as likely (indeed, historically, much more likely) to manifest itself in socialist countries as in economically and politically free ones.

Capitalism is about nothing more nor less than the individual self interest (not "greed") of millions of unique human beings being allowed to guide and determine how resources are allocated, in what quantities, for what purposes, and for how long, without coercion or artificial limitation. In a unhampered market economy, the people (the market) determine which industries exist, what is produced, in what quantity and variety, and which goods and services survive and which do not.

The only alternative to this state of affairs is a situation in which commissars, bureaucrats and politicians decide which industries exist, what is produced, in what quantity and variety, and which goods and services survive and which do not according to their preferences, not the market's (in American, about 300,000,000 people).

Capitalism is a unimaginably complex exercise in human cooperation and coordination that eventuates in the people themselves, who actually determine what is produced and how resources are allocated, actually choosing and having what they desire and will freely contract with others in an uncoerced manner to buy.

There is no "survival of the fittest" in the Darwinian sense. Entrepreneurs who do not serve the needs and wants of their fellow citizens, or fail to adequately anticipate or interpret those desires, will, it is true, find themselves out of business, but this is hardly Darwinian. All we have here is you and I expressing our preferences for one thing over another in a free market, and suppliers of those preferences trying to outperform one another in the supplying of those things we want. Some will be better and more competent at that than others, and they will "survive" in the market. Others will not be competent, and will disappear, having been moved out of the market, not by any mean or evil "capitalists", but by the buying preferences of millions of people, most of which do not and never will even know one another.

Also, droopy and bcspace are US centered. They haven't a clue just where Mormons are on the european political system. They would be surprised just how many european lds support 'socialist' oriented parties in europe.

This is logically irrelevant to the discussion, as the argument rises or falls on its merits, not on cultural bias.

[_Droopy]

To understand marx, you would need to understand the quality of life at his time for the working people. The quality of life was not very good.

I understand quite well the quality of life experienced by most average people in the mid-nineteenth century. I also understand that wages and living standards began a steady rise during this period that continued on into the 20th century and eventually created middle class affluence for the vast majority.

I also understand quite well that life for an industrial worker in a cramped, crowded urban apartment complex with streets full of manure and garage cans piled on street corners was not even comparable to the grinding poverty of agrarian life in the countryside. By the turn of the century, an industrial worker could raise his family in a small inner city apartment with hot and cold running water, gas, if not electric lighting, a gas stove/oven, a bathtub, lavatory and toilet (indoors), and water heat to keep his apartment warm and dry in the winter.

My poor beet farmer grandparents in Depression era Kerin, Utah, had much more than an agricultural worker in the late nineteenth century Europe or America could even dream about, let alone acquire, and it was a free market economic order and property rights that created this steady, progressive movement toward greater and greater prosperity and opportunity for ever greater numbers, not starry eyed, half educated theorists planning "new societies" and "better worlds" in European cafes or among small cadres of alienated intellectuals in ivory towers far from the realities of the human experience.

Marx observed capitalism in action, saw the suffering of the working people and began his critique of the capitalist system.

The suffering of the "working people" was:

1. A function of "capitalism" in its infancy and well outside the classical liberal framework that would later refine and humanize its fundamental features.

2. A function of the ancien regime being transformed and superseded by a very different system, creating upheaval and social disruption.

And he was basically right on the button with his analysis.

Marx had barely any idea what he was talking about, and his understanding of even the most rudimentary economics was either simply abysmal or distorted by his own preoccupation with the core metaphysical/philosophical notions that grounded his larger theory.

He was a humanist in orientation and saw socialism as a humane alternative to capitalism.

Marx was a utopian idealist driven by hubris and fascinated by grand ideological frameworks that explain all of human experience and provide the solution to all human ills. As the 20th century has shown us, of all ideologues, this is by far the most dangerous.

But he did not invent socialism Before him, were groups of people who were called utopian socialists. Marx brought a scientific analysis to socialism and a devastating critique of capitalism.

There is one, and only one other great ideological template that has been discredited to the same extent and depth as has the concept of "scientific" socialism, and that is the racial/social theoretical structure of German National Socialisim (and close kin to the Marxian variety).

[_Droopy]

America, for marx and engels, was a bourgeois democracy, the rule of the capitalists. Which of course would be correct.

The idea that some definable class or group known as "capitalists" in some substantive way "rules America" is so utterly devoid of intellectual seriousness as to provoke audiable laughter.

I have to wonder again, how much suffering, how much human potential wasted and destroyed must we undergo before these ideas are put the the grave where they have put the lives and, in too many cases, the bodies of so many others?

[_why me]

I understand quite well the quality of life experienced by most average people in the mid-nineteenth century. I also understand that wages and living standards began a steady rise during this period that continued on into the 20th century and eventually created middle class affluence for the vast majority.

I also understand quite well that life for an industrial worker in a cramped, crowded urban apartment complex with streets full of manure and garage cans piled on street corners was not even comparable to the grinding poverty of agrarian life in the countryside. By the turn of the century, an industrial worker could raise his family in a small inner city apartment with hot and cold running water, gas, if not electric lighting, a gas stove/oven, a bathtub, lavatory and toilet (indoors), and water heat to keep his apartment warm and dry in the winter.

My poor beet farmer grandparents in Depression era Kerin, Utah, had much more than an agricultural worker in the late nineteenth century Europe or America could even dream about, let alone acquire, and it was a free market economic order and property rights that created this steady, progressive movement toward greater and greater prosperity and opportunity for ever greater numbers, not starry eyed, half educated theorists planning "new societies" and "better worlds" in European cafes or among small cadres of alienated intellectuals in ivory towers far from the realities of the human experience.

The suffering of the "working people" was:

1. A function of "capitalism" in its infancy and well outside the classical liberal framework that would later refine and humanize its fundamental features.

2. A function of the ancien regime being transformed and superseded by a very different system, creating upheaval and social disruption.

Marx had barely any idea what he was talking about, and his understanding of even the most rudimentary economics was either simply abysmal or distorted by his own preoccupation with the core metaphysical/philosophical notions that grounded his larger theory.

Marx was a utopian idealist driven by hubris and fascinated by grand ideological frameworks that explain all of human experience and provide the solution to all human ills. As the 20th century has shown us, of all ideologues, this is by far the most dangerous.

The strange thing is droopy is that the average american wage earner is still suffering. Those who have lost their homes at the hands of crooks, those that can't afford decent health care, those who lost their jobs, and those who now live on volunteer handouts are all suffering. Not to mention the personal debt crisis that many americans are now grappling with. Wealth for the average american is an illusion. It doesn't exist except through credit.

The suffering in the united states is a reflection of a bankrupt system of wage slavery and profits for a few. To believe that america is not ruled by those with money would be incredible.

Many, many families are suffering and the victims in this suffering are always the children. So many children are now living in poverty in the land of wealth that I can only say that evil is alive and well in capitalism.

[_why me]

The idea that some definable class or group known as "capitalists" in some substantive way "rules America" is so utterly devoid of intellectual seriousness as to provoke audiable laughter.

I have to wonder again, how much suffering, how much human potential wasted and destroyed must we undergo before these ideas are put the the grave where they have put the lives and, in too many cases, the bodies of so many others?

To believe that money doesn't rule in america would be incredible. And yes, there is certainly a class that does rule american life and it certainly is not the average working people who make up that class. America has a capitalist system ruled by capitalists who make absolute sure that the ideology is forstered in schools and in universities and in the media.

[_The Nehor]

Republican Mormons are an interesting lot. I have had many arguments with them. Basically they are hypocrites. I have often been amazed just how republican Mormons can support welfare square and the lds' welfare system and yet, be against welfare for the poor in their society. It just doesn't make sense.

I have to disagree with this characterization. The difference between LDS welfare and gov't welfare is vast and I don't think agreeing that one is good it should follow that the other is equally good. I see no hypocrisy.

[_beastie]

Droopy asked:

So what here do you agree with, and what do you not agree with?

Why Me’s earlier statement:

Marx never said that democracy leads naturally to communism. To make this assumption, one needs to assume that capitalism is democracy. And of course, it isn't at all. What Marx did say, is that capitalism because of its internal contradictions and because of the struggle between worker and capitalist will lead to socialism.

Capitalism is far from democratic. Just look at the United State where there are two political parties who compete for influence, and yet both parties represent the capitalist ideology.

Not to mention the enslavement of others by capitialism to enhance the capitalist market through colonialism and imperialism and low wages.

I bolded the portion I agree with. I don’t know what Marx did and did not say. I don’t study economics; my viewpoints are formed by experience and common sense.

I strongly agree that both parties represent capitalist ideology. Of course there are some differences between the two parties, but these are differences of degrees and not kind, at least in regards to their economic ideologies. Certainly the democratic party believes in more regulation and government oversight while the republicans favor less, but, again, that is a difference of degrees.

I also agree that capitalism, by its nature, results in an underclass that, in the past, could fairly be called enslaved. Even today, look at how the unemployment rate is manipulated by the fed. The unemployment rate has to be “just right”, carefully maintained at a level higher than zero. If the unemployment rate drops too low, the fed will “cook” the recipe to put more pressure on the system, resulting in an upwards adjustment of the unemployment rate.

As history demonstrates, unfettered capitalism, by which I mean capitalism which is unregulated by inconvenient labor laws like child labor, restricted hours, minimum wage, tends to produce a two-tier economy: the rich and the poor. The reason the middle class exists in the US is that the government intervened to create it.

So, no, I’m not a Marxist. I don’t think socialism works any more than I think unfettered capitalism works. I believe in carefully regulated capitalism – the type that creates a healthy middle class, which, in turn, creates a stronger society. Of course this is a flawed system, but any system comprised of human beings will be.

Amen to Huck’s observation on your conclusions:

Huckelberry adds: I was a bit suprised by this conclusion from Droopy. It is a conclusion so far from the evidence that it takes the breath away. But Droopy has repeated reminded us all of his stratospheric intelligence and oceanic grasp of philosphical principals. As he has repeatedly explained these abilities are far beyond our abilities, we should perhaps not be surprised when he is able to divine observations of this kind of subtlety which we do not understand.

It does go a fair ways to explain how he sees a world full of Marxists. It is a bit like a once famous song John Birch Society Blues. However in the song the Bircher finally gets a hint. that's fiction of course.

by the way, droopy, I’m replying to you out of interest in the over-all thread. I just went some insane rounds with you on the LDS Republican thread – I’m not ready for more head-banging yet. So go ahead and write another one of your diatribes filled with right-wing sound-bytes, but don’t expect me to respond.

Moksha:

This probably relates back to the idea that politics has a stronger draw on people than religion and thus people subordinate the ideals of religion to the expediencies of politics. In this case, doing so creates a paradox.

Yes, I think that this may be true. And it makes some sense – politics has a type of power that not even religion possesses. It did seem to me on the LDS Republican thread that droopy’s real religion was his politics.

Why me:

Republican Mormons are an interesting lot. I have had many arguments with them. Basically they are hypocrites.

Droopy, in reference to why me’s statement:

Oh, how so (where will Beastie be now that why me has essentially said that LDS Republicans are inauthentic/unrighteous Mormons? Will the goose and gander be reunited here?)?

First, unless one must be perfect to be considered a “good Mormon”, being a hypocrite in certain aspects does not disqualify one from being a good Mormon. You have displayed a pernicious inability to differentiate between various sentiments in this regard. First you asserted that Reid’s statement that he was a democrat because he is LDS, not in spite of it, to be the equivalent of bcspace’s statement that one cannot be a good Mormon and be a democrat. Here you draw the same erroneous equivalency.

Aside from that, I do think why me is over-generalizing. Certainly hypocrisy may play a role with some LDS republicans, as it may with some LDS democrats, but I don’t think the statement can be made in regards to the total population.

[_moksha]

The difference between LDS welfare and gov't welfare is vast and I don't think agreeing that one is good it should follow that the other is equally good. I see no hypocrisy.

Supporting the LDS model only, merely gives lip service to helping the poor. The whole individual has more needs than can be provided by the Bishop's Storehouse, the bulk of the poor who are disabled and elderly do not fit well with most work programs and life would be too uncertain being left to the whims of lay Bishops - who themselves are products of a conservative philosophy that may render them ineffective when helping people in need.

[_why me]

Supporting the LDS model only, merely gives lip service to helping the poor. The whole individual has more needs than can be provided by the Bishop's Storehouse, the bulk of the poor who are disabled and elderly do not fit well with most work programs and life would be too uncertain being left to the whims of lay Bishops - who themselves are products of a conservative philosophy that may render them ineffective when helping people in need.

I am no fan of the welfare society but I am a fan of the welfare state. In a welfare state, there is a stress on equality and an easing of poverty. In the nordic welfare model, poverty almost becomes non-existent, thereby allowing people to be more self-reliant. Unfortnately, this model disappeared when the scandinavian countries joined the EU. Many are becoming a welfare society.

In a welfare society, people are given handouts to help relieve their poverty. Poverty which is forstered by the free market system.