Karl Marx was dead wrong about capitalism. That and just about everything else. Capitalism is highly susceptible to corruption Socialism is corruption. Utopia is Greek for nowhere. So I wouldn’t expect any economic theory to work there. Marx hated utopian Socialists.
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When autocorrect strikes…
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Not even capitalist economists think that. If anything, he is among the most influential writers on capitalism that has ever lived.
He didn’t expect capitalism to be able to adapt, which you might view as a flaw, since it very much did adapt. On the other hand, he is probably a major reason why capitalism did manage to adapt and even survive (due to influencing a movement that forced changes to happen). So thanks Marx!
And then sure, his political views on what should replace capitalism was pure nonsense, but for economics, his importance can not be overstated.
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Yeah I’m going to need a survey of capitalist economists to get me to accept that one.
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It wasn’t required. The professor was a total uber conservative, supply side, trickle down economics totally works and isn’t complete BS guy. It was on his recommendation. I like to read varying opinions in the political sphere. This guy(Thomas Sowell) is what they say in the biz, a partisan hack.
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Most likely because you hear Marx and think communism and automatically that its evil and bad. He is still regarded today as being highly influential amongst economists. The fact most of them are, how you say, capitalists, should tell you something.
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So how many of you are going to boycott Blizzard now for real? Like cancelling D2R pre-order and will not buy Diablo 4?
Roll a little the discussion, that question was already asked and answered
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That would mean I need to read thru 280+ posts for that tidbit, and I don’t think I want to do that either.
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I am actually trying to decide on that right now.
When I first saw about this, I was uncertain how bad it was. Then I looked at the complaint and saw some really bad things in it.
Now seeing that ex-employees are saying it is real and it is bad, I am more and more leaning towards cutting off all money.
What makes this such a hard decision is that I just got to raid Kara on WoW for the first time in longer than I care to think about. Also, I got lucky and got invited into a guild with good people in it. Me and the MT of the group I did it with a decade ago got a lot of respect with them very fast because we brought a lot of knowledge with us. Now though, I do not know if I can keep giving money to Blizzard. I have to give up a fun raid and new people to interact with.
It is a really unpleasant situation.
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It’s all been confirmed by the devs themselves, along with the obligatory apology. I wonder what the “innocent until proven guilty” crowd say now. Maybe repeat that being a jerk to women and men is “efficient”? Sure is efficient to turn up hungover at work…
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No it’s because I’ve read his work. The Labor Theory of Value is garbage. He never understood that capitalism is based on voluntary transactions. I wouldn’t trust most economists to run a lemonade stand. For instance Paul Krugman is highly influential among economists and completely clueless. Keynesians are often outright dangerous because they seem to love one part of their theory and hate the other.
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I’m in the innocent until proven guilty crowd. I’m not throwing out the basis of our entire legal system over the corporate-speak non-apology that I read. It was an acknowledgement that such views exist and a restatement of what we’ve all known for forever: that Blizzard is a LEFT AS HELL organization that strongly toes the party line on “rights” issues for all minority groups. They work hard at it. There’s no reason at all to suspect that corporate supported or encouraged this in any way.
This whole thing is ultimately a he-said, she-said. We’ve heard the accusations, but not much else of value. The acknowledgement that the suit was filed was hardly an “apology.” It was a typical, bland, jumble of PC virtue-signaling and meaningless corporate doublespeak lawyer-tested and lawyer-approved to admit absolutely nothing.
At best what I see is a pattern of incompetent and unprofessional middle management. And I also see a pattern where a whole lot of stuff was tolerated by employees who didn’t report things aggressively up the chain of command when the situation arose. They got offended but stayed quiet because they wanted to fit in, get along, and not be the bad guy.
Lastly, I see a California state agency trying to build a case on rumor and innuendo and desperately wanting to create a PC-guano storm with buzz words like “equal pay.” It’s been against federal law to pay unequal wages to women since 1963 (The Equal Pay Act). So, these are negotiated salaries. The women accepted the offers voluntarily instead of negotiating for better. And they’re adding this accusation to try and demonize the company, to give themselves more credibility, and get a bigger settlement.
Where’s the paper trail on this stuff? If there’s objective evidence, find it and prosecute the individuals involved. End of story.
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Company front may show you afew faces to stay relevant and cater masses, but at the background it’s a diverse party of hand shakers. No big company has one political view at its power only. Real world doesn’t revolve that way but I believe you already knew that.
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Marx did not discover how capitalism generates profit, -he described his view on it.
Merchants and industrialists discovered how to profit from labour.
Their thoughts and intensions are very well and fine, but governments are made of people. It would work if all people were nice and conscientious and wanted the same goal.
People are not nice unless there are consequences.
Consequences means force.
If you force people they will hate you.
This is true of free-market systems, too, though. The belief that free markets are the cure for society’s ills is just as utopian as the beliefs of any trot or tankie. The problem is that in the US, there are a lot of free marketers in positions of real power who are adamant in their beliefs, even as abuses run rampant-- and there are even more people who are outright corrupt in positions of real power, hanging on to the coattails of the free market purists.
Forgive me but I read this as you contradicting yourself. Could you rephrase?
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Where is the contradiction. People are not nice to others if there are no laws or common rules to live by.
If someone hurts another or produces less than another he or she has to be put in line=Force.
In a system where people are forced to do some things a certain way there will always be some who would rather not or have a mind of their own. -They hate to be forced and will work against the system.
Maybe more so in his time and before but as society continue to become dependent on business to do things for them, such as I dunno, hunt(process) our food, make our clothes, or provide services our tribes/small communities do not provide, it becomes less and less voluntary and more mandatory.
Sure, we all could going the grid, hunt and forage for all our needs, and ot have to participate in voluntary capitalistic transactions. But let’s be real, much of it is mandatory these days since we, as individuals, don’t posses the skills nor live in areas for those transactions to be voluntary.
With that said, his theories are good for a small community no bigger than a few hundred people. Once you get larger, more spread out, require more resources than the area can provide it all goes to hell. That doesn’t mean it’s bunk nor influential, which was the original point.
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Food is amazingly cheap, plentiful, and of incredible variety in this country. Worldwide, except for in socialist countries, starvation is disappearing and the standard of living is reaching unheard of heights. Our agricultural output is so big we’ve resorted to giving it away. The media has been reduced to talking about “food insecurity” in western countries where obesity is an epidemic. Capitalism did that and it did it through a series of voluntary transactions. No government told our farmers to farm, or how much they would be paid, or what to grow. That’s not a theory. Capitalism isn’t about self sufficiency it wouldn’t work if it were. Karl Marx was an economic buffoon.
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Even if Blizzard was somehow Leftish (which as Naksiloth said is quite debatable), I doubt anyone believe that leftish individuals can’t be despicable in their actions.
Having the better political views doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good human being.
Yeah, very true.
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