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Marxist economics
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
OK we all know what Marxism is, but how would a Marxist economy be run?
Would inflation or unemployment be controlled?
Would inflation or unemployment be controlled?
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You can't say that the UK's economy has continuously grown faster than mainland Europe without specifying a timeframe. Anyone who thinks that the UK has a better economic record than Germany should be reminded that the German economy was totally destroyed by the war, and yet now they are far richer per person than we are. The labour productivity of much of Europe (particularly Germany and France) is also, if I recall correctly, rather better than ours, regardless of "another layer of crap on top of governments"
PNJ have you actually studied this or is this just something Mr Murdoch told you? In fact Britain enjoyed its longest run of stable growth when we had a more Socialist economy between 1945 and 1979, it could even be argued that had we not had the oil crises and too powerful unions in the 1970s we would have done a lot better for ourselves. Yes the Thatcher years saw higher growth in the booms but they also saw the two most devastating recessions to hit this country since the Great Depression, they also saw massive unemployment that we have only recently been able to get back to below 1 million where it was in the 1970s.
Governments are very much necessary to economic management, the more government you have the more you can counter the economic cycles of boom and bust and the damage they cause. Democratic Socialism is actually on the whole a pretty good way to run an economy, you take money off the rich and give it to the poor and because the poor are more likely to spend money than save it you increase consumption in the economy, thus increasing demand from firms, thus increasing jobs and prosperity. Nationalisation, if done properly not like we did it in the 1970s, means lower prices for consumers, means any profits are re-invested in a business and allows slow gradual declines of industries such as coal and steel rather than the sudden stop they had in the 1980s which gives time for people to find new jobs. The more money a government spends on health and education and transport serves to make goods and people move around the country faster, while workers are better educated and healthier and so can work more. The more educated a workforce the more they can innovate and develop new industries. The subsidies offered to certain types of firms can reduce unemployment and give a nation a head start in certain fields of industry.
Our own govt in Washington and the surrounding area is perhaps the largest most extensive government structure on the planet, and in complete contradiction to dogmatic Republican claims, Bush and co made it substantially larger than before rather than reducing it.
The EU institutions combined do not even comprise of a fraction of the multiple layers of the US federal machine.
Stop regurgitating this tabloid rubbish and go learn the truth for a change!
pnj is turning anarchist!!! :crazyeyes
That depends. In the 1980's and 1990's the UK's growth was faster than other EU nations.
There are different forms of socialism. What is your point?
Look at Russia for example, at least on the side of education, communism failed.
However, I'm left wing to the point of communism but quiet about it.
If Marxist theory had ever been truly realised anywhere it would be characterised by no centralised govt sturcture whatsoever. complete self rule with equal distribution of wealth. A rather utopian concept given basic human nature which Marx failed utterly to factor into his equation.
Well the point of this thread was to ascertain how a Marxist society's economy would work, but no one answered.
Marx presupposed that every individual would willingly work for the harmony and wellbeing of the whole of society and thus no need for hierarchical structures of state control.
Creeper, With the vast number of scientific, literary, et al. scholars produced by the Soviet education system, you cannot say that their education failed. Their economy yes, education no.
Here's a good comparative:
http://www.oregonvos.net/~fairport/anarchy.html
In and of itself Anarchy is not inherently tended toward violence, simply elimination of state as it has come to be defined.
The main problem as with all such alternative ideologies is the manner in which it would deal with the safeguarding of individual liberties (but then we have the same problem with the hierarchical system in which we live, its just simply better hidden from the masses in most cases).