Marxist's Apartment A Microcosm of why Marxism Doesn't Work

[Ned]

Che, I assume you approve of unions in communist countries that are run by the communist party. Right? But what about independent unions, so-called "free" unions. What is your opinion of Lech Walesa?

"Lech Walesa, the fly, feisty, mustachioed electrician from Gdansk, shaped the 20th century as the leader of the Solidarity movement that led the Poles out of communism. It is one of history's great ironies that the nearest thing we have ever seen to a genuine workers' revolution was directed against a so-called workers' state. Poland was again the icebreaker for the rest of Central Europe in the "velvet revolutions" of 1989. Walesa's contribution to the end of communism in Europe, and hence the end of the cold war, stands beside those of his fellow Pole, Pope John Paul II, and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Walesa's life, like those of Gorbachev and the Pope, was shaped by communism. Born to a family of peasant farmers in 1943, he came as a young man to work in the vast shipyards that the communist state was developing on the Baltic coast, as did so many other peasant sons. A devout Roman Catholic, he was shocked by the repression of workers' protests in the 1970s and made contact with small opposition groups. Sacked from his job, he nonetheless climbed over the perimeter wall of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in August 1980, at age 37, to join the occupation strike. With his electrifying personality, quick wit and gift of the gab, he was soon leading it. He moved his fellow workers away from mere wage claims and toward a central, daringly political demand: free trade unions.

When the Polish communists made this concession, which was without precedent in the history of the communist world since 1917, the new union was christened Solidarnosc (Solidarity). Soon it had 10 million members, and Walesa was its undisputed leader. For 16 months they struggled to find a way to coexist with the communist state, under the constant threat of Soviet invasion. Walesa--known to almost everyone simply as Lech--was foxy, unpredictable, often infuriating, but he had a natural genius for politics, a matchless ability for sensing popular moods, and great powers of swaying a crowd. Again and again, he used these powers for moderation. He jokingly described himself as a "fireman," dousing the flames of popular discontent. In the end, martial law was declared. Walesa was interned for 11 months and then released.

Yet Solidarity would not die, and Walesa remained its symbol. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. With support from the Pope and the U.S., he and his colleagues in the underground leadership of Solidarity kept the flame alight, until the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin brought new hope. In 1988 there was another occupation strike in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, which Walesa again joined--though this time as the grand old man among younger workers. A few months later, the Polish communists entered into negotiations with Solidarity, at the first Round Table of 1989. Walesa and his colleagues secured semifree elections in which Solidarity proceeded to triumph. In August, just nine years after he had climbed over the shipyard wall, Poland got its first non-communist Prime Minister in more than 40 years. Where Poland led, the rest of Central Europe soon followed--and the Soviet Union was not far behind.

The next phase in Walesa's political career was more controversial. Angered by the fact that his former intellectual advisers were now running the country in cooperation with the former communists, he declared a "war at the top" of Solidarity. "I don't want to, but I must," he insisted. Fighting a populist campaign against his own former adviser, he was elected Poland's first noncommunist President, a post he held until 1995. Some people liked his stalwart, outspoken style. Others found him too undignified to be the new democracy's head of state. Brilliant as a people's tribune, he stumbled over long formal speeches. You never felt he was quite comfortable in the role. When he stayed with the British Queen at Windsor Castle, he characteristically quipped that the bed was so big, he couldn't find his wife.

Politically, he was also erratic. As Poland was struggling to be accepted into NATO, he suddenly proposed a "NATO bis," a shadowy "second NATO" for those in waiting. Not for the first time, his colleagues put their heads in their hands. His closest adviser was his former chauffeur, with whom he played long games of table tennis. He developed close links with the military and security services. His critics accused him of being authoritarian, a "President with an ax." In another historical irony, he was defeated by a former communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski. Walesa went back to Gdansk, to his villa, his wife Danuta and their eight children. But at 54 he is still young, and he recently announced the formation of his own political party. Like Gorbachev, he finds it very difficult to accept that he has become a historical figure rather than a politician with serious chances.

Walesa is a phenomenon. Still mustachioed but thickset now, he stands for many values that in the West might be thought conservative. Fierce patriotism ("nationalism," say his critics), strong Catholic views, the family. He's a fighter, of course. But he's also mercurial, unpredictable--and a consummate politician. He is an example of someone who was magnificent in the struggle for freedom but less so in more normal times, when freedom was won and the task was to consolidate a stable, law-abiding democracy. For all his presidential airs, he still retains something of the old Lech, the working-class wag and chancer that his friends remember from the early days. But no one can deny him his place in history.

Without Walesa, the occupation strike in the Lenin Shipyard might never have taken off. Without him, Solidarity might never have been born. Without him, it might not have survived martial law and come back triumphantly to negotiate the transition from communism to democracy. And without the Polish icebreaking, Eastern Europe might still be frozen in a Soviet sphere of influence, and the world would be a very different place. With all Walesa's personal faults, his legacy is a huge gain in freedom, not just for the Poles. His services were, as an old Polish slogan has it, "for our freedom--and yours."

Oxford historian and author Timothy Garton Ash wrote The Polish Revolution: Solidarity"

http://www.time.com/time/time100/lea...le/walesa.html

[chequita guevara]

Walesa was a CIA stooge. Solidarity was a good thing while it was still independent, but the CIA and the Catholic Church took over and changed it from a socialist union to an anti-communist union.

In the begining, Solidarity wanted to reform and democratize socialism in Poland. This would have been a great thing, but it was dangerous not only to the Eastern Bloc, but the West as well. Neither side wanted to see a democratic socialist state, as it would show the USSR for the sham it was and it would show the West that there was another way.

Nonetheless, I always supported Solidarity, at least until it became a political party.

[Ned]

Che, I applaud you for supporting free trade unions. I assume from this that you would denouce sham trade unions that are fronts for other interests, such as the government or mafia or the like, and who really do not represent the workers.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
I assume from this that you would denouce sham trade unions that are fronts for other interests, such as the government or mafia or the like, and who really do not represent the workers.

One doesn't denounce mob run unions if one knows what's good for one.

Revolutionaries, such as myself, try to fight union corruption. We build and support efforts such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union and New Directions in the Autoworkers and Steelworkers to break the hold of the old guard bureaucracy and mob and restore the unions to their rightful owners. In other countries, we sometimes build alternative unions alongside corrupt or government unions.

It took almost twenty years in the Teamsters, but TDU was finally able to force the government to step in and get the mob out. The reality is, however, the the government snatched victory from TDU, and stepped in because TDU was successful, and the Fed's absolutely did not want a Red run Teamsters. The only way to head us off was to remove the impetus, mob control. Regardless, the result for the rank and file was they got their union back, and for a time, it was even working for them.

Since Hoffa Jr was handed the leadership of the Teamsters, however, things have declined. The landmark UPS victory has evaporated as UPS has violated the contract all over the place, while the union has sat on its hands and done nothing. This is because the former head, Ron Carey, was implicated (though never charged) in coruption. Several higher ups recycled union money from the union, through the Democratic Party, into Carey's election campaign. Despite the fact that all guilty parties have denied Carey was involved, Carey has been bared from holding office in the union, which meant that no real opposition existed to the mob and old guard's candidate, Hoffa Jr.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
You can't disconnect what is inherent to being human from the economic systems devised by humans, unless of course people don't have the wealth to be charitable (communism) or they are punished for being charitable. Capitalism allows for charity by allowing people to accumulate wealth and allowing them to give it away.

That's not the point. Charity is not a consequence of capitalism. Having charities inside a capitalistic society is not a valid redress for the massive inequalities that is a result of capitalism. The society as a whole has a moral resposibility to help its most disadvantaged group.

Charities are not needed under communism because there will not be any disadvantaged group.

[Ben Kenobi]

Charities are not needed under communism because there will not be any disadvantaged group.

/me looks up word 'Kulak' in encyclopedia.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Communist solution: Use the whip or deny perks. (Punishment)
Capitalist solution: Pay bonus for every widget produced above 1000. (Rewards)

Observation, both systems work to increase production, but the worker is happier under the capitalist system.

This conclusion flies in the face of almost all OB (organisational behaviour) studies, which tries to find out how to improve workers' productivity.

The idea that a worker can be made to perform better was found to have no basis in fact by the Hawthorne Studies performed by Elton Mayo.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


That's not the point. Charity is not a consequence of capitalism. Having charities inside a capitalistic society is not a valid redress for the massive inequalities that is a result of capitalism. The society as a whole has a moral resposibility to help its most disadvantaged group.

Charities are not needed under communism because there will not be any disadvantaged group.

UR, I have no fundamental disaggrement with this. As I have said before, the "redress" has to be in the form of providing a solid base of education for every citizen, equal opportunity in acedemia and the workplace through careful civil rights legislation, a social safety net to catch those who stumble, and social security for the elderly.

What the far left wants to do is more than this - it wants to play Robin Hood and steal from the rich and give to the poor; it wants steeply progressive taxation to eliminate the accumulation of wealth; it wants oppressive estate tax laws to prevent the passing on of wealth; it wants to own or intrusively regulate all aspects of big business. The bottom line, the left hates wealth and does everything in its power to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


This conclusion flies in the face of almost all OB (organisational behaviour) studies, which tries to find out how to improve workers' productivity.

The idea that a worker can be made to perform better was found to have no basis in fact by the Hawthorne Studies performed by Elton Mayo.

Tell us more about those studies.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


* Ben Kenobi looks up word 'Kulak' in encyclopedia.

1) The Kulaks were an advantaged group.

2) The fact that the society was ruled by a Communist Party doesn't make it a communist society. At the time, the USSR had heavily regulated capitalism, and they were transitioning to socialism.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Tell us more about those studies.

Try this link

He highlighted the importance of communication between management and the workers and identified the now accepted notion, that work satisfaction lay in recognition, security, and sense of belonging, rather than monetary rewards.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
What the far left wants to do is more than this - it wants to play Robin Hood and steal from the rich and give to the poor

The thing about the rich is they got that way via established social mechanisms. Hence, the society as a whole can decide they don't want these mechanisms anymore, or to at least place restrictions on them.

[Ben Kenobi]

che:

They weren't under the Communists.

2) The fact that the society was ruled by a Communist Party doesn't make it a communist society. At the time, the USSR had heavily regulated capitalism, and they were transitioning to socialism

So theoretically, there should be no need for charities under communism, just like theoretically the state will eventually disappear.

Define for me a 'communist' state.

What about North Korea who needs free food to feed the people?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Define for me a 'communist' state.

A state that follows the distributive justice of communism.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
What about North Korea who needs free food to feed the people?

A party that's called "communist" can be just in name only. Like the Republicans and Democrats.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


The thing about the rich is they got that way via established social mechanisms. Hence, the society as a whole can decide they don't want these mechanisms anymore, or to at least place restrictions on them.

Democracy was born when two voted to take the land of a third after he had improved it and made it fertile.

The politics of envy is enormously destructive and immoral.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
che:

They weren't under the Communists.

They were during the NEP. It's only in the 1930s, when Stalin decided to liquidate them as a class that they were no longer priveledged.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Democracy was born when two voted to take the land of a third after he had improved it and made it fertile.

That's not true. The first organized democracy (as opposed to primative tribal democracies, which have existed far longer than we can count) began in Athens as a result of too many Athenians being enslaved for debt. As a result, they overthrew the govenment and established a democracy so no Athenian could ever be enslaved by another Athenian again.

History is always the enemy of conservative ideology.

[Ben Kenobi]

A state that follows the distributive justice of communism.

Either UR or Che,

Give an example of this distributive justice.

Have there been any states that have conformed to this model?

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


That's not true. The first organized democracy (as opposed to primative tribal democracies, which have existed far longer than we can count) began in Athens as a result of too many Athenians being enslaved for debt. As a result, they overthrew the govenment and established a democracy so no Athenian could ever be enslaved by another Athenian again.

History is always the enemy of conservative ideology.

Well at least the Athenians did not vote to confiscate the lands of the rich and distibute them to the poor.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Either UR or Che,

Have there been any states that have conformed to this model?

That's his definition, not mine.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Give an example of this distributive justice.

Marx defined this quite precisely in his works.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Have there been any states that have conformed to this model?

No, as it requires a very high level of productivity to succeed.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Democracy was born when two voted to take the land of a third after he had improved it and made it fertile.

The third person bribed corrupted officials to seize land from the other two.

I can make hypothetical scenarios as well as you do, you know.

Originally posted by Ned
The politics of envy is enormously destructive and immoral.

The underlying principle of distributive justice is equality, not envy.

[Ben Kenobi]

No, as it requires a very high level of productivity to succeed.

So all we have is theory.

We don't really know whether communism as defined will actually work in the real world.

As for this distributive justice, could you not have quoted, from each according to his abilities, from each according to his needs?

There are several problems with this approach in Marx.

1. "He presumes, therefore, that human beings will want to be productive and will produce pretty much as much as they can. Everyone will work to the fullest of their abilities simply because they love to work. "

Now, I think that this is absolutely unrealistic. People will not want to work to their fullest extent unless they are somehow compensated for their efforts. Marx, in detaching compensation from efforts removes drive for both sides of people, from the workers to increase productivity, and from those who do not work to find some.

Che:

What's your definition then? How would it differ from URs?

[Drake Tungsten]

ARMONK, NY—In a move hailed by corporation owners as a forward-thinking humanitarian gesture, IBM emancipated more than 8,000 wage slaves from its factories and offices Monday.

"You are all free, free to go!" said IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano to the 600 men and women freed from the corporation's Essex Junction, VT, location. "No more must you live a bleak, hand-to-mouth existence, chained to your desks in a never-ending Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 cycle. Your future is wide-open. Now, go!"

The 600 newly freed workers cleared out their desks and were escorted from the building within an hour. In spite of Palmisano's jubilance, the emancipated wage slaves were strangely quiet as they filed into the parking lot, carrying their work possessions in cardboard boxes.

"I'll miss them," said Jim Tallman, manager of IBM's plant in Rochester, MN.

Tallman, who was ordered to set 150 of his factory's wage slaves free, added, "They were hard workers. Many of them were extremely intelligent. Some were like members of the family. But I know in my heart that having them here was a crime against human resources. The world is changing, especially the economy, and no decent businessman could look at the cost-benefit analysis and not see that turning them loose was the only thing to do."

Palmisano explained that, while IBM posted profits for its second quarter, its microelectronics sector lost money due to a sharp downturn in the industry. The corporation also freed wage slaves from plants in Endicott, NY; Austin, TX; and Raleigh, NC.

Public response to the emancipation has been largely positive, particularly among the company's shareholders. Value of IBM stock jumped 7.5 percent in the hours following the historic corporate-emancipation proclamation.

Business leaders have enthusiastically praised the wage-slave release.

"In these days of streamlined, modern business, wage slavery is an increasingly peculiar institution," CNN national business correspondent and arbitrage guru Mike Boettcher said. "We owe these poor, exploited people a chance to try to make it on their own merits. It's not right to work them to their deaths, or even to the usual retirement age of 67."

Palmisano said the move, although sudden, came at the right time.

"There is no reason for a modern-day John Henry to spend his life trying to out-spreadsheet an IBM business machine," Palmisano said. "Especially since our computers, properly programmed and equipped, can handle the accounting workload of hundreds of human beings."

Upon hearing the news, many of the liberated wage slaves expressed trepidation over their uncertain futures.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to do now," said Essex Junction's Anne Porter, 36. "I was born into a family of wage slaves. I've never known anything but wage slavery. I barely own anything more than the clothes on my back and the other, almost identical business-casual pantsuits hanging in the closet of my studio apartment."

"On the other hand, I'll never have to see that whip-cracking quality-assurance overseer again," Porter added.

President Bush hailed IBM's decision in an address to the White House press corps Monday.

"No one said freedom was easy," said Bush, who in recent months has praised wage-slave-emancipation programs initiated by Eastman Kodak, Sun Microsystems, AT&T, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, Boeing, General Mills, and Oracle. "But doing what's best for the corporation as a whole eventually benefits us all. This is what America is all about. I wish all the newly freed wage slaves the best of luck in their bright new futures."

Wall Street Journal analyst J. Craig Hoffman praised the emancipation.

"In a truly modern capitalist nation, letting people go is the only right thing to do," Hoffman said. "Certainly, IBM could have kept those poor wretches slaving away for the company, as some have been doing for the past 30 years. But, we must ask, at what cost?"

"Actually, $47,643 average annual overhead per worker, counting salary, benefits, and projected cost of pension or 401K co-payments, adjusted for inflation over the wage-slaves' useful lifespan, as it turns out," Hoffman added.

http://www.theonion.com/3939/news1.html

Well, at least one major company is still fighting the good fight for Marxism. God bless the comrades at IBM.

[Berzerker]

UR -

That's not the point. Charity is not a consequence of capitalism. Having charities inside a capitalistic society is not a valid redress for the massive inequalities that is a result of capitalism. The society as a whole has a moral resposibility to help its most disadvantaged group.

Charities are not needed under communism because there will not be any disadvantaged group.

Has there ever been a capitalistic system where charity did not exist? Capitalism is just a word for the marketplace where people exchange what they and others value, charity is just what most people do when they see others in need. Charity is inherent to being human and capitalism allows charity to exist. And if charity isn't needed under communsim, then communism runs counter to human nature - which probably explains why communists have to spend so much effort "re-educating" the masses. It's no coincidence damn near every communist system tries to prevent people from leaving while capitalist systems have to limit immigration - too many people fleeing your beloved communism.

The underlying principle of distributive justice is equality, not envy.

There's another difference between capitalism and communism - the capitalist sees a nice home and says, "I want a nice home too, I better work hard and save my money". The communist sees a nice home and says, "they shouldn't have that nice home, destroy it so they are my equal".

Envy is also inherently human, so communism must be a really amazing idea if it can overcome human nature in so many ways. Oh yeah, that's where the "re-education" comes in.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Che:

What's your definition then? How would it differ from URs?

Communism is that stage of industrial society in which democracy has been extended from the political sphere into the social and economic spheres as well, when production for exchange-value is replaced with production for use-value, and when scarcity is replaced by abundence.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Berzerker
There's another difference between capitalism and communism - the capitalist sees a nice home and says, "I want a nice home too, I better work hard and save my money". The communist sees a nice home and says, "they shouldn't have that nice home, destroy it so they are my equal".

Actually, the communist says, "Everyone should have nice homes."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
1. "He presumes, therefore, that human beings will want to be productive and will produce pretty much as much as they can. Everyone will work to the fullest of their abilities simply because they love to work. "

Now, I think that this is absolutely unrealistic. People will not want to work to their fullest extent unless they are somehow compensated for their efforts. Marx, in detaching compensation from efforts removes drive for both sides of people, from the workers to increase productivity, and from those who do not work to find some.

Not really. Recent researches show that Marx is correct to a large extent. After a person has satisfied basic survival needs, he works to:

1. Fulfill psychological needs
2. Fulfill social needs
3. Perform self-actualisation

This explains very well why there are a large number of people who write programs for others to use, completely free (either as in beer or both).

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The underlying principle of distributive justice is equality, not envy.

Well, perhaps when translated to practical politics, as we see daily paraded by the Democrat Party, it becomes envy.

Envy: a feeling of grudging or somewhat admiring discontent aroused by the possessions, achievements, or qualities of another.