
Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points the way out - ehudla
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/20/yanis-varoufakis-marx-crisis-communist-manifesto
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ehudla
Here's the bit that resonates with issues often discussed on HN:

"In the manifesto’s unforgettable words: “A society that has conjured up such
gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no
longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by
his spells.”

The sorcerer will always imagine that their apps, search engines, robots and
genetically engineered seeds will bring wealth and happiness to all. But, once
released into societies divided between wage labourers and owners, these
technological marvels will push wages and prices to levels that create low
profits for most businesses. It is only big tech, big pharma and the few
corporations that command exceptionally large political and economic power
over us that truly benefit. If we continue to subscribe to labour contracts
between employer and employee, then private property rights will govern and
drive capital to inhuman ends. Only by abolishing private ownership of the
instruments of mass production and replacing it with a new type of common
ownership that works in sync with new technologies, will we lessen inequality
and find collective happiness."

~~~
candiodari
So in order to prevent these evil capitalists from ... (god forbid) fulfilling
people's wishes ... we should give full power over everything ("the economy"
which is everything) to person/committee X (Marx and Engels both saw that
democracy and communism are incompatible) who will then "make everyone happy".

Ok ... that sounds like an excellent idea, so long of course, as your wishes
and happiness are perfectly served by X.

Also: no thank you.

~~~
anoncoward111
That ironic feeling when crony statist capitalists already have complete and
total control over the economy

It's just socialism by another name, and with different recipients (namely
corporate execs instead of the median human being)

~~~
candiodari
Corporate execs organize companies that deliver value to society ... or they
won't be execs for long.

Socialist bureaucrats ... they "justify" their place in society the way the
people at the DMV do.

~~~
kahnpro
On the contrary, such companies don't deliver value. Their sole purpose is to
extract value.

~~~
anoncoward111
Right? Like Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen, Comcast, Raytheon, just deliver
soooooooo much value to the American taxpayer!

Those executive bonuses are hard-earned!

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vixen99
One has to be really in thrall to an ideology to write " (a manifesto) ...
needs to have the power of a Beethoven symphony, urging us to become agents of
a future that ends unnecessary mass suffering and to inspire humanity to
realise its potential for authentic freedom. No manifesto has better succeeded
in doing all this than the one published in February 1848 at 46 Liverpool
Street, London."

How about an evidence-based cost/benefit analysis?

~~~
Emma_Goldman
Do you really think politics is just a matter of technical analysis? Really?

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throwaway13337
The problem with these common ownership ideas is that hierarchy is inherent in
human structures.

Whether it's labeled 'for the people' or not, you end up with the same
distribution of decision makers and benefactors concentrated at the top.

It's not a problem in capitalism but one of humanity or maybe even natural
law.

~~~
ehudla
The idea that everything can be bought and sold, for example your feudal
estate, is quite new. I think Varoufakis is a somewhat of a disciple of Karl
Polanyi on these matters.

But I agree that the notion of "a new type of common ownership that works in
sync with new technologies" needs much more spelling out.

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acqq
I think I saw the article a few minutes ago on the first or the second page,
and now it's already on the 13th, the last one, the last item. Wow. That's
fast. Correction: it's gone from the pages completely as I posted this.

------
willvarfar
Here is an interesting related tedx talk about the proportion of rich people
in Nordic socialist countries
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU)

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101km
Here's the bit that resonates with issues often discussed on HN:

"I believe that Marx and Engels would have regretted not anticipating the
manifesto’s impact on the communist parties it foreshadowed. They would be
kicking themselves that they overlooked the kind of dialectic they loved to
analyse: how workers’ states would become increasingly totalitarian in their
response to capitalist state aggression, and how, in their response to the
fear of communism, these capitalist states would grow increasingly civilized."

~~~
candiodari
I know socialists see this as a critical component to their theories, and I
understand why. But the truth is that the Soviet union, and China, both became
very extreme totalitarian states ... not because of external aggression, but
because they feared the civil war they themselves had used to get to power,
before any capitalist aggression really began (long before WWII, and even
during). They saw their own power (and with it, communism, at least in their
minds) mortally threatened by the very mechanism that gave it birth, and
therefore saw extreme measures as justified to prevent that.

I will agree that later on "capitalist" aggression made it worse. Although a
significant (and the most complained about) part of capitalist "aggression" by
far was accepting refugees from communism, and so perhaps aggression is not
always the correct term. Other things weren't nearly so benign.

I would also like to see socialists explain why communist societies became so
incredibly more aggressive after communes in the West (which were allowed to
exist, in large numbers, where they weren't outright abusive) ... failed of
their own accord. I mean, my idea is that they failed because they proved the
truth of socialist fears : given free choice of it's members, every society
will eliminate communism. Of course, I see history following the Soviet
collapse as further reinforcing this idea.

~~~
emodendroket
> I know socialists see this as a critical component to their theories, and I
> understand why. But the truth is that the Soviet union, and China, both
> became very extreme totalitarian states ... not because of external
> aggression, but because they feared the civil war they themselves had used
> to get to power, before any capitalist aggression really began (long before
> WWII, and even during).

Foreign powers involved themselves in the civil wars in both places, which
complicates this claim.

China's civil war in any case took place after World War II (the Nationalist-
ruled China could fairly be described as an authoritarian state but I don't
know that that helps the case)`.

