The Myth of Modern Communism (a rebuttal)

Would it not seem more appropriate to use this rebuttal in a comment in Br@ndon's post? One of the most important aspects of Newsvine is creating discussion, and having multiple posts about the same subject is quite an inefficient way of sparking conversation.

TopJedi speaks of this topic in a different sense, relating it to Seeds; however, I feel it applies with posts as well:

Posting comments frequently generates a lot more dialogue than seeding links. I have found it can be a lot more informative and entertaining to keep the dialogue flowing on one article than seeding mulitple variants to generate more dialogue.

Someone is finally respecting Marx's work as political philosophy and not a transparency to the ideology of the Soviet Union (or other remaining ex-satilite nations that still exist in present time) and not subduing to the anti-Soviet propaganda created in the last 50 years by our government or its allies.

I'm not totally sure if Br@ndon has read the manifesto or understands its teachings. As Killfile reports the two main ideas of his writings are:

1 - Class struggle (the conflict between the rich and the poor) is the motivating force in all of history
2 - Eventually society will naturally progress to a point where all artificial means of wealth will pale in comparison to the ability of a person to do work.

After the Marx discusses the oppression of the bourgeoisie, economic cycles of a free-market society and touches on cultural ideals that he believes should be defeated, he suggests a number of pragmatic forcasted landmarks that should taken AFTER the initial revolution to centralize control to the state. I don't think those transitional landmarks are fundamental to his overall philosophy. Therefore, I don't think comparing reactionary institutions within the United States government (such as the Federal Reserve Bank or the USPS) to those transitional steps outlined by Marx, as communistic institutions or partisan tendencies of democrats is an effective argument. Killfile is correct in saying:

When reactionaries point to some of Marx's forcasted landmarks (like the nationalization of property or the centralization of economic power) and shout "Communism!" they only serve to show themselves as fear mongers.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to Br@ndon's and now Killfile's seed to keep this ongoing debate intellectual and not simply a politically polarized bashing session. Hopefully it will continue as this is an outstanding debate.

Thomas Sowell suggests that in our present society, the distinctions in lower, middle, and upper classes are far from stagnant. Many people who are poor today are so because they are in school getting a degree after which their income will increase considerably. In other words people are always shifting from one class to another so to suggest that the poor is a stagnant class with the same people there today that were there yesterday and will be there tomorrow denies common sense. All of this is to say that Marx's first principle only works in class systems such as are less and less common.
His second point is also ignorant of Basic Economics (also by Thomas Sowell). Many believe in a finite amount of wealth that needs to be distributed properly. This leads one to believe that rich people are so because they have taken the limited supply of wealth from the poor. This is simply not so. If this were the case then the number of people with wealth would remain stagnant or at least reach a ceiling at some point. A study of American history should provide ample evidence to entirely overthrow this hypothesis.

Many people who are poor today are so because they are in school getting a degree after which their income will increase considerably.

I'd appreciate your quantifying this statement. What percentage of "poor" are "in college" (I'm assuming you don't mean in high school)? And I'd like to i know your definition of "poor", given that college graduates who opt to teach in "the city" or college graduates who elect to work for NGOs often quality for subsidized housing. [an example]

In other words people are always shifting from one class to another so to suggest that the poor is a stagnant class with the same people there today that were there yesterday and will be there tomorrow denies common sense.

I am wary of statements that contain absolutes: always

That said, I'd again like to see the data to support the assertion. The data I've seen do not support it, but it has been some time (years) since I resarched this topic.

Thanks for the discussion on Marx. Although my Master's degree is in ag econ, and I minored in econ as an undergrad, I have never read Marx. I have many friends who are urging me to do so, some of them economist academics. I lament the trend in economics programs today, for they seem far more interested in being perceived as (imo, quasi) "science" by virtue of the emphasis on econometrics than in engaging in philosophical or theoretical discussion relevant to their founding thinkers (which includes Marx and Adam Smith).