The First Draft of the Book Karl Marx Wasted His Whole Life Writing
This excerpt from page 109 of Leszek Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism introduces the Paris manuscripts.
January 25, 2013 - 9:00 am
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New Year’s Resolution #5: Read the Five Big Books of Anti-Marxism. Friday Bookshelf selections currently focus on the work of Leszek Kolakowski, Paul Johnson, Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, Ayn Rand, and Whittaker Chambers
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I’d be more interested in knowing when we (as a civilization) will cease to consider Marx anything more than a philosopher. He knew nothing of economics, politics, or science. His works are evidence enough, yet if you use the words “labour” and “capital” enough people think it’s about economic.
It’a kind of like Obama’s brain. A first draft that never evolves.
Marx is the saint protector of jobless journalists. That’s who he is. Not even a philosopher. Will comment more in a moment.
I know not a whole many will agree with me because the truth is very hard to agree with.
Evolution is a fact. In the evolutionary history of man there has been a period that lasted around 40,000 years when the most favorable and widespread traits of man were loot, pillage and rape. 40,000 years is long enough to be fixed in our genes, and it was recent too. We also have had a 7 years of civilization with intermittence of barbary, loot, pillage and rape. These are atavisms of the past and will appear forever. Especially if we had a trait which turned inconvenient then at a later time convenient again, the trait makes a comeback through atavisms. Whatever.
Nowadays these traits cannot be so explicit and open, They need elaboration. Also a successful loot nowadays needs coordination. The psychological trait of looters nowadays is borderline personality disorder (BPD). Malthus, Marx, Marcuse, Al Gore, Obama, Muhammad, all of these men are very remarkable BPDs. It can be seen among other on how much above everybody they put themselves and the disdain that they prove for everybody else. Even the paternalistic traits of Obama towards the little people sprout from here. Even the fact that they want to bring down USA springs from their belief that there is enough to loot already. They want to depopulate it, then dominate it. On and on.
Marxism is the philosophy of loot. Islam is the religion of loot. Birds of a feather flock together.
Marx’s writings can’t be all crap if so many intelligent people found something valuable in them. I wonder how many conservatives have actually tried to read Marx with an open mind before forming an unshakably strong opinion.
I for one am a conservative who has given too many exams on Marxism-Leninism Philosophy as a school requirement in Eastern Europe, more precisely Albania. It actually is all crap and they actually are prolific idiots. What does it take to sit, have everything covered and publish one’s opinions? That’s what many bloggers do nowadays, some of them have become quite popular. In science we have method to prove right from wrong. If a chemical reaction doesn’t happen as predicted, I don’t call them lumpenmolecules. If workers didn’t do what Marx predicted, Marx called them lumpenproletariat.
“Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows to be the solution.” Marx. That alone is too much to be true. 4.5 billion years of evolution, species come and go, comets bang or not, all of it to synthesize in a riddle that Marx solved. That’s really big.
It is very likely that he got nothing whatsoever right, as he had no experience whatsoever: jobless journalist. Why did it spread like wildfire? Probably it touched a chord, not a noble one. Why do so many intellectuals embrace it so wholesale? Because it is easy reading and makes them feel smart about themselves, and makes them feel smarter than you that never read them.
Marxism now amounts to millions of pages. It would be utter waste of time to spend any time with it whatsoever.
I only know Marx at second hand, so when you say that it actually is all crap, I have to take your word for it. But your assertions are ridiculous.
What does it take to sit, have everything covered and publish one’s opinions?
I don’t know. Perhaps you should ask Socrates.
In science we have method to prove right from wrong
What’s your point? That science is the only source of truth? In fact, even in science the problem of truth is often more complicated than you suggest. When in the 1840′s the orbit of Uranus was observed to be different from what had been predicted based on Newtonian gravity, astronomers did not throw out Newtonian gravity; they inferred the existence of a new planet that was affecting the calculations.
It is very likely that he got nothing whatsoever right, as he had no experience whatsoever
There is no living member of the animal kingdom that can properly be said to have “no experience whatsoever.” You simply choose not to count such experiences as reading, contemplating, and interacting with other students and with professors. By “experience” you mean having a paying job, as though people with paying jobs all had insights into economics that cannot be acquired by reading Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
it is easy reading and makes them feel smart about themselves
Seriously? So, thousands of intelligent people, including philosophers like Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin, who had read Capital and had at least something positive to say about something in it, did it for no other reason than “to feel smart about themselves”? I’m sorry but I’m not remotely convinced.
The entire point of the left is to demolish the concept of right vs. wrong – except as a tool to gain power for the leaders of the movement.
I read the above text selections and the comments that follow and ‘I feel smart about myself.’ Thanks guys.
to read comments from someone in support of marx after all the death and suffering that his followers have brought to the human race is mind boggling. But it does show that those of that mindset still exist even though history has proven them wrong again and again. Trying to compare it to astronomy shows just how far off those people really are. These followers have already made gains here in the US. We can’t let this continue.