Hi my name is Tom but you can call me Ark1tec. I'm from the UK and plan to visit Prague, Praha soon. My inerests are architecture (hence the user name) Marxist economic theory and RAVES. Yes in my youth (16-24) I was a raver. What is a raver you may ask, well a raver was and still is somebody who goes/went to a club, warehouse, wood, field or anywhere that dance music is spun on turntables all night for people like me to dance all night. My interest in architecture is an academic one at present which will be a real one in the future, hopefully. Marx represents for me the biggest influence in my life after architecture and before raveing, chronologically. I don't now much about the Czech republic other than it is Bohemia and that I like the Bohemian lifestyle. Looking forward to hearing from people on this site and learning about Czech life. Yours, Ark1tec. And I'm out.
Welcome But I'm not sure if your interest in marxist economy theory impress us Czechs here very much. We had to live in marxist economy in practice you know and believe me, it wasn't fun
Marx theory and communist practice were two totally different things, I think. I do not know much about the reality of life in the communist era in the Czech republic.
Welcome. There are several posts here discussing how things were in CR during communism; so you should get a good education and maybe even change your view on a few things. :wink:
Well yes I have looked at the results of a search "communism," and to be honest there are no accounts of what life was like for a Czech who was a communist or otherwise. Obviously I don't know what it would be like as I grew up with capitalism everywhere. I suppose old labour socialism does'nt count and the USA is a comparable comparison to the soviet union or maybe middle class hypocritical morality in business is somewhat similar to corrupt statesmanship under communism. I'm glad the east has opened to the west and vice versa so that these discussions have possible answers from both sides as equals on a clean sheet of paper. As for education reading Kapital is an education, an education about the difference between theory and practice. And I'm out.
What do you mean, reading Kapital? Don't understand. What is that? Das Kapital? If that's what you mean, I thought that was a theory relegated to the trash dumps of history a long time ago. A nice theory, but cannot be put in practice, goes against everything an individual wants to be. Stifles human nature, and gives oppressive authority to the state.
Yes I meant Das Kapital. Karl Marx said that the society after the revolution was to have no government and no law, that the goods manufactured by the proletariat were to remain the property of the proletariat. Three things that never happened in european Communist countries. All the goood things about socialist society such as a national health service and educataion etc were achieved outside of the fundamental beliefs of Marx and Engels which were never achieved in the eastern block. The only achievement inside of so called Communist countries was the downfall of capitalist business and aristocratic land ownership but this has to be weighed up againgst the pointless power of government and law along with it's own corruption. As for the shift of factory production to the east and the subsequent development of China that is all done under the banner of Communist economic theory. All that needs to be done now is for the proletariat in China and the exploited workforce of the rest of the orient to claim their right to ownership away from the pointless dictatorship and to live their lives by the book. The book being Das Kapital. While the rest of the western world lives in decadence glorifying their so called freedom becoming fat in Mcdonalds saying they've grown out of socialism because they choose to rot their teeth on Starbucks Frothino.
Chinese are horribly exploited by their government. They work for minimal wage and government hoards profit. But they now frantically looking for, what you are calling decadent life I'm sorry, I like your romantic aproach and I find it refreshing and I hope you stay on this forum. But, did you tried to read some basic info about Czech history or present China, like on www.wikipedia.com or something like that?
I agree with Eso, ark1tek, I'm enjoying your discussion, even if I don't agree with all your views, and debate is good. By the way, welcome to this forum. You wrote...Society after the revolution was to have no government and no law, that the goods manufactured by the proletariat were to remain the property of the proletariat. That is all idyllic, until you consider that all private land and enterprise is now owned by a huge totalitarian government whose main purpose is to ensure it's own existence, at the expense of a lot of basic individual freedoms.
That reminds me of a saying that I have when one of my friends proposes an idea that sounds really great at first, but has glaringly obvious faults upon further examination. "It's like communism.... good in theory." Sometimes I get so terribly fed up with capitalism too; I suppose there is a bit of communist thought in me, but that just doesn't solve the problems that I see either. And unfortunately you can't run an economic system on any sort of middle ground between the two. That, and no matter what you do within a country; the world is still capitalist by default. So anyway, welcome to the forum.
Thankyou all for your thoughts, I welcome them all. I don't think of Marx as a politician only as someone who saw the unfairness in the world of capitalist dominance over the working class. The exploitation and demoralization was profound,unique and the worst wrong after war and slavery. Marx was a brilliant economist, a lot worse things could and probably would have happened to most people without his ability to explain in easy to understand terms the inadequacey of bourgeoise economics. He saw major faults in Adam Smith, Ricardo, et al & corrected them in a language that was in favour of the majority ie. the working class. I understand that his political theories were not evolved enough to put into practice properly without corruption but that was because he truly believed that when somebody puts all the hard work into producing something that then belongs to that person or those people. Perhaps if he had concentrated on economics and somebody else had the idea to formulate a system that expressed the beliefs he held about community ownership by the proletariat succintly then the system would have worked better. I believe the west has been cut off from being able to envisage a future plan by the shift of manufacturing to the orient. The gradual shift from royal,aristocratic & religious power to bourgeois capitalist and then to educated middle class administrative was progressive but still left the majority in a position easily exploited. The majority of people in the west are now lower middle class and not working class.
Hmm, are you sure about that? I can't speak for the West generally, but in the UK, while it's true that we no longer have a "working class" comprised of large groups of coal miners, steel workers, ship builders or factory workers, they didn't all move up into the lower middle class bracket. While many have been fortunate enough to make that shift, there are reports from respected charities like Joseph Rowntree Trust, Child poverty Action and help the Aged that there is a growing underclass in the Uk of groups who are falling below the poverty line, especially among the old, families with young children the less able and those not well served by our current education system.
Sorry Ark1tec, but who or what is dysfunctional? Anyone not in the lower middle class? anyone below the poverty line? The capitalist system in general or UK society in particular?(I would opt for the last on the list :wink: )
