Things which piss me off.... Teachers sprouting ignorance!

[Imran Siddiqui]

If it's their private property then they should be able to sell it.

Can you sell your body into total slavery? Is it not your own private property?

There are definetly some property, which is private property, but not alienable.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

If it's their private property then they should be able to sell it.

Can you sell your body into total slavery? Is it not your own private property?

There are definetly some property, which is private property, but not alienable.

I'm not interested in this argument. You've found a grey area. I'm satisfied with just the understanding that it is a grey area. I do think that it depends on the outcomes though. If the outcomes are unequal because some people end up owning more property then that is capitalism. But then again I think that capitalism has to entail the exploitation of workers through the mechanisms of profit, interest and rent so there is a grey area.

[Kidlicious]

Calling a govt or an individual fascist doesn't mean that it's type of govt is fascism. Fascist means to have characteristics of fascism. So if a government allows the private ownership of capital and is authoritarian then it has SOME characteristics of fascism and in that sense it is fascist. Similarly when Fez says that the govt should throw all the communists out of helocopters he is being fascist, and so we call him fascist. He supports a system that has the same characteristics as fascism.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Calling a govt or an individual fascist doesn't mean that it's type of govt is fascism. Fascist means to have characteristics of fascism. So if a government allows the private ownership of capital and is authoritarian then it has SOME characteristics of fascism and in that sense it is fascist.

Does this mean I can call the US communist since it has SOME characteristics of a communist state? After all in the Communist Manifesto, Marx lays out 10 things he wants done, the US has done at least half of them, IIRC (such as minimum wage, welfare, etc).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Calling a govt or an individual fascist doesn't mean that it's type of govt is fascism. Fascist means to have characteristics of fascism. So if a government allows the private ownership of capital and is authoritarian then it has SOME characteristics of fascism and in that sense it is fascist.

Does this mean I can call the US communist since it has SOME characteristics of a communist state? After all in the Communist Manifesto, Marx lays out 10 things he wants done, the US has done at least half of them, IIRC (such as minimum wage, welfare, etc).

I thought you read Marx. Where does Marx argue for a minimum wage? Christ what am I saying. Marx was against wages period. You're talking out of your ass.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Marx wasn't an idiot. He knew that you didn't just go from capitalism to socialism in a heartbeat (even if he wanted revolution). He wanted a minimum living wage in the meantime so the workers wouldn't live in **** until the Revolution came (even though them living in **** would lead to a quicker revolution... it's a tough dilemma).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Marx wasn't an idiot. He knew that you didn't just go from capitalism to socialism in a heartbeat (even if he wanted revolution). He wanted a minimum living wage in the meantime so the workers wouldn't live in **** until the Revolution came (even though them living in **** would lead to a quicker revolution... it's a tough dilemma).

That is complete nonsense. He predicted subsistence wages whould be a permanent aspect of capitalism. Back then they had wage ceilings. It was the liberals who argued that these wage ceilings should be removed. Marx said nothing about it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

From the Weekly Worker:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/385/letters.html

The demand for a minimum wage can have virtue, in Marx’s approach, only to the extent that it comes organically out of the labour movement itself, and serves as a lever to expand workers’ struggles based on a bourgeois definition of ‘needs’ (fair wages) into a more general class-against-class form and thus towards a struggle for higher working class needs (solidarity, workers’ liberty).

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=minimum%20wage

In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx describes the minimum wage as "that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer".

Marx didn't directly call what we call it the 'minimum wage'. That term he reserved for something else. But he called it a living wage (IIRC) for the workers that turned in our 'minimum wage'.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Marx didn't directly call it the 'minimum wage'. That term he reserved for something else. But he called on a 'living wage' for the workers that turned in our 'minimum wage'.

He was talking about the subsistance wage. That is the wage that is required for the workers to maintain a living. That is something completely different from advocating that the govt should maintain a certain wage floor. He agreed with the liberals that the subsistance wage would be maintained through the free market.

It was the Progressive movement that gave us the minimum wage. You are confusing that with the Communist movement.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Furthermore the US has incorporated free education and progressive taxation, both with Marx has called for.

I guess then, I can call the US communist because it has SOME communist aspects.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That is something completely different from advocating that the govt should maintain a certain wage floor.

I'm not saying that our minimum wage is the same as his. Marx wished the labor unions (or industrial armies, if you wish) to push for a wage floor, so that all of its members would earn what they needed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

While this man is not a Marxist, he is a Professor of Economics and makes an interesting point:

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0102/opinion/worland.html

The sharpest argument ever offered to justify the minimum wage was provided by Karl Marx in Das Kapital. Using the power conveyed by his ownership of the means of production, Marx said, the capitalist compels the worker to produce an amount that exceeds what he is paid in wages. The “surplus value” thus generated is the source of the capitalist’s profit. This being the case, legislation that shifts the balance of power from capitalist to worker is one way to expropriate the expropriators. Workers of the world, unite—and vote for the party that promises to increase the minimum wage.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
While this man is not a Marxist, he is a Professor of Economics and makes an interesting point:

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0102/opinion/worland.html

The sharpest argument ever offered to justify the minimum wage was provided by Karl Marx in Das Kapital. Using the power conveyed by his ownership of the means of production, Marx said, the capitalist compels the worker to produce an amount that exceeds what he is paid in wages. The “surplus value” thus generated is the source of the capitalist’s profit. This being the case, legislation that shifts the balance of power from capitalist to worker is one way to expropriate the expropriators. Workers of the world, unite—and vote for the party that promises to increase the minimum wage.

And that is the argument that progressives use. That doesn't mean that Marx was a Progressive. He was a communist. The difference is that he didn't believe that workers could improve their lot within the capitalist system, and that the system should be overthrown. Progressives don't believe that the system can or will be overthrown.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Furthermore the US has incorporated free education and progressive taxation, both with Marx has called for.

I guess then, I can call the US communist because it has SOME communist aspects.

He predicted that those would be aspects of a communist system, not a capitalist system. Achieving those things through the capitalist system is progressivism, not communism.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Do not some Communists agree with Progressives that the minimum wage should be raised? I can guarentee you that many Communists on this board would say that. I don't think there would be one that wouldn't howl if someone proposed taking it away!