Big

The worst enemy of capitalism, which it ironically supports, is more wealthy people in the world.


The social theories of Karl Marx were long ago discarded as of little value, even to revolutionaries. But he did warn that capitalism had a tendency to generate its own crises. Indeed, the spread of capitalism, and its accelerated industrialization and wealth-creation, may have fomented the food-inflation crisis - by dramatically accelerating competition for scarce resources. The rapid industrialization of China and India over the past two decades - and the resultant growth of a new middle class fast approaching the size of America's - has driven demand for oil toward the limits of global supply capacity. That has pushed oil prices to levels five times what they were in the mid 1990s, which has also raised pressure on food prices by driving up agricultural costs and by prompting the substitution of biofuel crops for edible ones on scarce farmland. Moreover, those new middle class people are eating a lot better than their parents did - particularly more meat. Producing a single calorie of beef can, by some estimates, require eight or more calories of grain feed, and expanded meat consumption therefore has a multiplier effect on demand for grains. Throw in climate disasters such as the Australian drought and recent rice crop failures, and you have food inflation spiraling so fast that even the U.N. agency created to feed people in emergencies is warning that it lacks the funds to fulfill its mandate.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2008041...dtoppleregimes

RYou

Oh, I thought you meant the long lost 4th Marx Brother

Big

I really think capitalism is just another side of communism. One limits wealth creation but saves resources while the other promotes wealth creation but depletes resources, both leading to eventual shortages of materials one way or the other. I believe no one ism is good enough to sustain human needs and all isms are needed to an extent to prevent any of the extremes.

Tight-Waist

My son in college is currently writing a tem paper on Marx. He says Marx reminds him of the "trustifarians" he sees on campus. He also says Das Kapital looks like the writing of some college sophomore.

matclone

Big, what "social theories" do you suppose this writer is referring to--that he says are discredited? Or, is he just trying to sound clever?

Big

matclone, I suppose the author might be talking about the theory that in order for someone to get rich, many others will have to be robbed of their wealth. The feeling now is that everyone benefits in a so-called "trickle down theory". Now we see Marx coming to light as some poor Nations can't afford to eat due to the wealthy Western countries jacking up the prices to MAKE SOME PROFIT


Tight Waist,

The bible sometimes sounds like the writing of a 5 year old who believes in Santa. You have to realize the times when these people lived. What a college sophomore knows now was considered genious 150 years ago.

Big

Oh yea matclone, the fact that the author so readily claims Marx's theories have been discarded is just proof he is writing for the Western crowd that might get scared of the author mentioning Marx, declare the author communist and not read the article. If you put Marx in a negative light in the first sentence where he is mentioned, they might get interested.

matclone

Ha. You're probably right. It's like this Rev. Wright story where a multitude of writers declare him reprehensible without any argument in support of such claims. It's another version of the argument, "Well, everyone knows..." or "That's socialism"--as if by making these declarations, one is absolved of making any cogent arguments (and note how vague the writer is about this: Marx's "social theories"--meaning ?). And, to your point, they are also making an appeal to those who have already come to certain conclusions and will be titillated when they see something that supports said conclusions.

Most of the educated world knows that Marx is one of the major thinkers in western history, and not irrevelant--even if most of the world is not communist. He is the leading critic and theorist regarding the problems of capitalism. And since there are no purely capitalist societies on this planet, or anything like 19th century London, he may have been on to something.

Big

Very true matclone, America owes much to Marx with regard to social services and such and worker's rights.

Its like I sometimes think that Jews owe the existence of Israel to Hitler.

Tight-Waist

You make a legitimate point (about Marx being viewed through the prisim of time), but it begs the question of how a demonstrably failed economic system that was responsible for literally hundreds of millions of deaths could every be looked at sympthetically.