Depressed... I Turn To Marx...

Olga Kerimova 21 April, 2006 19:59 General Permalink Trackbacks (257)

Depressing. The SALT trip got postponed due to bad weather :(

So, instead of spending the weekend camping out under the stars, I started the weekend by catching up on some economics reading... Just as fun, right?

Anyway, reading and thinking about economics made me reminiscent. Many moons ago a friend and I were approached by a somewhat intoxicated man nearing old age (and old to us). The details are irrelevant but what stuck in my mind were the curious questions he asked us. He
asked us three questions. One was to name all the constellations in the southern sky. The other I don't remember. And the last was to say who Karl Marx was. Looking back, the man was a prime but sad example of the dying Russian Intelligentsia, drowned in poverty and liquor.

To our embarrassment we knew none of the answers. Marx's name was a vague notion echoed by the name of an underground station in our home city; to us, the new generation - no longer a product of the socialist system, Marx was a ghost of the past. To me, Marx has always had negative even sinister associations. My knowledge of him had been second-hand stories from parents who had to memorise passage after passage of his philosophy in the much despised political economy classes of the Soviet Union schools and universities.

I have not thought of the old man's question in a long time. Studying Marx and Tony Leimann's lectures have caused the question and the old memories to resurface in me. Ironically, what made me think of Marx today was the fact that the reading for Keynes is found on website: marxists.org

I came across some useful links (to be revisited before the exam ;))

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Marx.html
http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/Marxism.html
http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/marx.htm

I also came across the Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels in late 1847. While I haven't read the whole thing (perhaps one of these days I will gather the courage to try), I thought the opening "credits" were amusing... They even altered the language to fit in with the Marxist ideology:

Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1987, 2000.

Last paragraph of the Communist Manifesto reads:

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!"

Nice sentiment, eloquently and dramatically expressed. My view is though, that Soviet Union is a prime example of a theory which seemed great but turned out to be utopian. What was supposed to be a social and economic system for the people (it was socialism after all), turned out to be impoverishing and terrorising. An economic system can hardly be examined separately from its social and political consequences. Clearly, the market may not be an ideal co-ordinator of an economy, but the State is not much better. From first-hand knowledge of my own family, I know that socially the people (other than the privileged few) were indeed made equal, equally worse off. There were incredible deficits of almost every good, with queues for the most basic foods like milk and bread, that were rationed. Meat was a luxury as was chocolate etc. Meanwhile the 'party shops' were bursting with caviar, and other delicacies. And yes, I have heard many an argument that what I have described is a failed implementation of socialism and not the failing of socialism itself. However, if the system of Marxist economics allows the State to have complete control over every aspect of society, and its prescriptions lead to massive shortages in production and underpaid (or unpaid) workers, then perhaps the consequences of the system are inherent in the system itself. And this is why I get so upset when parties and individuals shout out communist slogans without examining the inherent implications or looking at manifestation of the theory they advocate in practice (USSR, Cuba, China etc).

It is my strong belief that communism is a utopian dream at best, which is not feasible in practice, because of the very nature of our society and the impossibility of complete state control without absolute power translating into terror-governed submission of the people. How can we possibly have equality to the benefit of all people when by the nature of the socialist structure, some are made superior to (and in control) of others?


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