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Karl Marx was right.


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The final stages of capitalism, Marx wrote, would be marked by developments that are intimately familiar to most of us. Unable to expand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system would begin to consume the structures that sustained it. It would prey upon, in the name of austerity, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens. It would, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturing and professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of laborers. Industries would mechanize their workplaces. This would trigger an economic assault on not only the working class but the middle class—the bulwark of a capitalist system—that would be disguised by the imposition of massive personal debt as incomes declined or remained stagnant. Politics would in the late stages of capitalism become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real political content and abjectly subservient to the dictates and money of global capitalism.

But as Marx warned, there is a limit to an economy built on scaffolding of debt expansion. There comes a moment, Marx knew, when there would be no new markets available and no new pools of people who could take on more debt. This is what happened with the subprime mortgage crisis. Once the banks cannot conjure up new subprime borrowers, the scheme falls apart and the system crashes.

Capitalist oligarchs, meanwhile, hoard huge sums of wealth—$18 trillion stashed in overseas tax havens—exacted as tribute from those they dominate, indebt and impoverish. Capitalism would, in the end, Marx said, turn on the so-called free market, along with the values and traditions it claims to defend. It would in its final stages pillage the systems and structures that made capitalism possible. It would resort, as it caused widespread suffering, to harsher forms of repression. It would attempt in a frantic last stand to maintain its profits by looting and pillaging state institutions, contradicting its stated nature.

Marx warned that in the later stages of capitalism huge corporations would exercise a monopoly on global markets. “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe,” he wrote. “It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.” These corporations, whether in the banking sector, the agricultural and food industries, the arms industries or the communications industries, would use their power, usually by seizing the mechanisms of state, to prevent anyone from challenging their monopoly. They would fix prices to maximize profit. They would, as they [have been doing], push through trade deals such as the TPP and CAFTA to further weaken the nation-state’s ability to impede exploitation by imposing environmental regulations or monitoring working conditions. And in the end these corporate monopolies would obliterate free market competition

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/karl-marx-was-right-2/

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Just now, Zambroski said:

Karl Marx.  The Jesus Christ for socialists....without any of the cool and magical abilities to end suffering.

His assessment was spot on. 100% accurate. It's pretty astonishing

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2 minutes ago, f7ben said:

His assessment was spot on. 100% accurate. It's pretty astonishing

Actually, it wasn’t.  It wasn’t at all.  Simplistic in his “teachings”.  The ramblings of a drunken, broke man without a country.  Lifted up from the ashes by an authoritarian state that could force his beliefs.....and failed.

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Just now, Zambroski said:

Actually, it wasn’t.  It wasn’t at all.  Simplistic in his “teachings”.  The ramblings of a drunken, broke man without a country.  Lifted up from the ashes by an authoritarian state that could force his beliefs.....and failed.

Which portion of his late stage capitalism assessment is wrong?

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1 minute ago, XCR1250 said:

And yet Socialism has been failing all over the World, why are 1000's of folks trying to get here again??

There isnt one single socialist state in the world as Marx defined it.  

Authoritarian dictatorships are not socialism

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7 minutes ago, f7ben said:

Which portion of his late stage capitalism assessment is wrong?

All.

”If you eat all the bread in the basket and nobody makes more bread.  There will be no more bread to eat in the basket.”

BrYLyUntZ!

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Just now, Zambroski said:

All.

”If you eat all the bread in the basket and nobody makes more bread.  There will be no more bread to eat in the basket.”

BrYLyUntZ!

So you wont comment on the article

Got it 

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12 minutes ago, XCR1250 said:

And yet Socialism has been failing all over the World, why are 1000's of folks trying to get here again??

We are $23 trillion in debt and growing by over $1 trillion a year. I'd hardly call that a success. All state, fed and local debt is over $60 trillion. Sounds pretty socialist to me. 

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2 minutes ago, Anler said:

We are $23 trillion in debt and growing by over $1 trillion a year. I'd hardly call that a success. All state, fed and local debt is over $60 trillion. Sounds pretty socialist to me. 

Let me know when that affects you somehow, I have heard about the debt every year as long as I've been alive and yet it has never affected me at all.

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4 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

All.

”If you eat all the bread in the basket and nobody makes more bread.  There will be no more bread to eat in the basket.”

BrYLyUntZ!

Very true but a big problem that I see is on the profits end........the people selling the bread are making way more money than the people making the bread. I guess that's why greedy biz needs to exploit China, Asians and Mexicans.

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9 minutes ago, Anler said:

We are $23 trillion in debt and growing by over $1 trillion a year. I'd hardly call that a success. All state, fed and local debt is over $60 trillion. Sounds pretty socialist to me. 

That’s not a function of capitalism 

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3 minutes ago, snoughnut said:

Very true but a big problem that I see is on the profits end........the people selling the bread are making way more money than the people making the bread. I guess that's why greedy biz needs to exploit China, Asians and Mexicans.

This isn’t always the case.  Nobody takes into account the skill, risk, and brains it takes to expand an enterprise.  Those that do it successfully are paid accordingly.  Those that fuck it up even once now make the bread.   

But I can admit there is too much reward for some on the top....that didn’t really earn it.

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11 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

How did that statement have anything to do with capitalism (or Marxism)?

This is why I don’t argue the benefits of bald tires with people who crash weekly.

You're dumb as fuck dude

Debt to gdp at 105% and growing at over double the pace gdp is growing is what you stupid fucks refer to as socialism. 

It's a direct function of what Marx referred to as the end result of capitalism. 

You're so fucking dumb it's like trying to argue algebra with a 4 year old

Edited by f7ben
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