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Tobin S.

(10,418 posts)
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 08:29 AM Jun 2012

So far I'm getting an 'A' in my economics class

100%, 90%, and 100% on my first three assignments. I've also taken the first exam and I'm waiting on the score from that. I think I did well.

The class is making me think about politics. The text does not take an overtly political stance except to say that communism doesn't work. It sort of leaves open the door for a liberal or a conservative interpretation. One example of that is that it gives differing perspectives on the fairness of a competitive market. Is a market fair if everyone has to play by the same rules? Is it only fair if the results are fair?

So far we haven't gotten into government controls on a market. It's all theoretical free market stuff right now. I was joking with my wife the other night telling her that I'm going to have to read some Karl Marx to balance this stuff out.

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rug

(82,333 posts)
1. At the very least, read the Manifesto.
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 09:36 AM
Jun 2012
All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.

The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.

The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

Tobin S.

(10,418 posts)
2. So I take it
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 10:03 AM
Jun 2012

that a Marxist would not buy into the idea that everyone behaves in accordance to their own self interests and everyone behaving this way in a free market benefits the social interest. You could extrapolate that to mean that everyone behaving selfishly as far as their economic interests go benefits society.

That's one of the first things they throw out there in my text. It would seem perfectly natural for people to behave in a way that is consistent with their own self interests. It's probable that that might new to be tempered with some government regulation here and there. We are starting to get to that in our class.

Tobin S.

(10,418 posts)
4. Interesting
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 10:47 AM
Jun 2012

Thanks for the link.

I guess you could say that Skinner abandoned the socialist model when he went from donations to subscriptions.

I'm new to the study of economics, be it the capitalist side or the socialist side or whatever might lie in between. My personal political views lean more to the left side. I like politicians like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich. I am studying business right now and it's pretty much out of a desire to increase my income. And it's the only major offered online that I can take that will likely do that. I'd love to be a science major, but I simply don't have the time for it.

That's what being a working class dude can do to you. You slave away for little money for long enough, you may start looking for an out and jump at the chance if you think you can achieve it.

Populist_Prole

(5,364 posts)
6. I've come to find it provides needed perspective to counter anti-labor propaganda business 101
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 12:58 PM
Jun 2012

I've seen, and lost friends due to the fact once they took economics and business admin in college they turned into knee-jerk, corporatist anti-labor douchebags. They were not that way before they went to college.

backscatter712

(26,355 posts)
7. When I took Microecon two years ago, the textbook we used was written by Paul Krugman!
Sat Jun 2, 2012, 01:26 PM
Jun 2012

That was pretty cool.

One of the things that this econ class pointed out here and there is that there are two things we optimize for. One of them is efficiency, which, of course, is pursued doggedly, especially by the Friedmanites and free-marketeers.

But as Krugman sometimes points out, and as my econ prof pointed out, we do sometimes choose to trade efficiency for equity - for a little bit of social justice, so the biggest sharks don't eat everyone else in the fish tank.

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