Not the Nine O'clock News: Marxists

[nuppe10]

What episode was this on?

[Hrafn89]

The socialist or and labour movement was the creator/-s as I understand it and obviously a number of other good 'things', it has always existed a labour movement which has been struggling to get better conditions. Adolf Hitler built roads which still works in Germany, he helped the country out of depression and stopped French repression, but this doesnt mean that either AH or Communism would be the way to go. On the other hand, the poor people 200 years ago probably benefitted by socialism.

[LordHuddersfield]

@Hrafn89 Autobahns were built to transport soldiers quickly between Eastern border of Germany and the Western border to make fighting on two fronts (like what happened in the First World War) more efficient.

Living standards never rose above pre-Depression levels while AH was in power because industry became geared for war production by 1939. AH wanted to go to war before his generals thought Germany was prepared because his economic policies could only be sustained by looting other countries.

[MajorRoy]

@Hrafn89 I would say everybody benefited by socialism and the writings of Marx, since it progressed the movement of universal suffrage. At least in my home country, Sweden, the aristos would have never allowed labor to form government if it hadnt been from the fear of the guillotine.

[marcsman229]

Communism is an idea, nothing more.

[IiiERT]

He may have come from a jewish family but I don't think he considered himself a jew considering that he condemned religion as a form of oppession.

[asmodeus585]

@IiiERT: Being Jew doesn't have to have anything to do with any religion. Judaism and Jewish nationality are two separate things. Albert Eistein was an atheist, yet he was Jewish.

[IiiERT]

So he was a jew and an atheist.

But he was also a German...both Marx and Einstein. So are they Germans or Jews?

I say pick one assholes, and stick with it.

[asmodeus585]

@IiiERT: There's a funny anecdote made by himself about his nationality. Look it up in google. ;)

Anyway, both his parents were Jews, yet he was born and brought up in Germany, so he was actually a German Jew, just like the Rotschilds, so there's no need to 'pick one' as you say, due to the quite flexible nature of "Jewishness".

[Hrafn89]

This is comedy...... joking about taboo, especially about religions such as communism, you will see people lacking moral stepping up to protect communism with comments such as Marx was only a writer! Stalin was not a communist, Lenin was another ism and so on...... Communism is a dark religion and has destroyed many lives throughout the world, still its good that they joke about it..... There is no better way than to make those idiots look as the fools they are...... great sketch......

[almanacofsleep]

@Hrafn89 Well said, although your point is kinda let down by the fact you clearly don't know what your talking about.

[Hrafn89]

@almanacofsleep, I am quite curious to understand what you mean, are you another political revisionist with theories that are partly or only based on political belonging rather than historical facts or do you from a moral perspective object to people making fun of Communism or Nazism (examples), due to the nature of their crimes?

[almanacofsleep]

@Hrafn89 You are the revisionist, the fact you now start to mention Nazism makes me think you will make the erroneous their one in the same. Such a claim would be one based on complete ignorance of both Communism and Nazism, as well as showing a misunderstanding the left and right spectrum in politics. Now I'm going to wait for your response to see if I am right.

[Hrafn89]

@almanacofsleep I guess you put Communism and Nazism on the opposite side, wonder how you manage to do that? Both ideologies are just flavors of the same and has historically produced the same destructive result, using very similar or same rethorics and behaviour. Both are 'religions' and has its own gods and bibles. Communism are based on 150 year old crazy talk, even if some seem to be ok, the simple message is to change the world via terror, just a repetition on the French revolution

[almanacofsleep]

@Hrafn89 Proved me right, to call the ideologies the same thing flies in the face of historical research, political science and the writings of both Hitler and Marx.

[Hrafn89]

@almanacofsleep This might be to complex for you to understand, but if you travel too far east you will end up on the west.

I learned one thing with communism and that is that the number one rule is as long as communism prevails do whatever you like "the result justifies the deed", meaning that there is only one way to look at communism and that is the end result, what did actually do. There is no reason in discussing with a communist, they are believers, just to look at the history.

[IiiERT]

Of course the End justifies the Means. Kill some burgeoisie twat and you're one step closer to paradise.

[asmodeus585]

@Hrafn89: Actually we have some communist ideas implemented in our everyday life, like eight-hour workday.

[GreenBaldrick]

@Hrafn89 You're wrong.Nazism is pure evil. Is about raсism, about terror, about "living space" for Aryans and all this shit.Communism at the beginning was a good idea. It was about care for the poor, rights for workers, similar opportunities for people of different social groups.It was against exploitation, against dishonest moneybags etc. The communistic idea itself is NOT BAD, bad is that this idea is UTOPIAN. So you HAD to use all these terrible metods, but you'll fail all the same.

[rumpraisin]

@Hrafn89 Anders Breivik would agree entirely with your views.

[tellyontellyon]

I'm slowly reading this book. Once you get what he's saying, it is pretty understandable... but he seems to go over the same thing over and over and his use of language takes a bit of getting used to.

But he was clearly a clever guy.

[AngelArtists]

I though Karl Marx was fantastic in "Duck Soup".........LoL

[MarcusNobelus]

Whatever 'ism' they say we live in, we always have been and continue to this day to be totally under the thumb of the elites. It will be only a matter of time before we are ALL dumbed down ignorant consuming sheep.

[michael72401]

@monegarand So was Adolf Hitler

[HippyCalliach]

@monegarand Your point ?

[MultiSmartass1]

Funny sketch. The problem is that left groups and terror organizations did read Marx and did act on their beliefs. It wasn't a joke for the Red Army or Baader Meinhof-this was their secular religion. So they had a cause they took seriously AND killed for. That's what you have to keep in mind. Still quite funny though.

[MontyPython246]

That was not just marxists, but communists as a whole.

[ryaniomitch]

@MontyPython246 bahaha you talk sso much shit look at the monarchs and capitialist countries/

[MontyPython246]

@ryaniomitch Communism is the most pretentious political theory ever. Look at the revolution in Russia (1917): It led to total chaos when Stalin took the leadership.

Communism is about people taking control of the state and while that may sound ideal, it isn't - because most "communists" are like the ones in the sketch: Ignorant people who haven't got the slightest idea about politics.

[ryaniomitch]

@MontyPython246 what it's pretentious to make everyone equal?

most communists arent like that. :S

stalin although he murdered millions of people look what he did for russia in the space of 7ish years, if i remember exactly, from one of the most backward countries in the world to a global superpower. don't no where u stay but here in the UK in 7 years we'll still be

[MontyPython246]

@ryaniomitch It's pretentious to fight the state and then become the state: that's what communist is.

They sure are. In Greece, there is a communist party and the candidates as well as its leader are 100 years behind.

Yes, Stalin murdered millions and made Russia a superpower, he was a purely Machiavellian politician (The ends justify the means). Capitalism works with the exact same way. So, Stalinism is a form of capitalism, not communism -which commands "Power to the workers"-.

[ryaniomitch]

@MontyPython246 @ ur greek comment, one party one leader? bush, reegan, david cameron, hitler, ?

stalins ideas were more capitalist but his execution of the job wasnt so much.

neither capitialism nor communism works. when we find a midpoint between the two then we will live in tranquility

like hendrix said, "when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

[MontyPython246]

@ryaniomitch I agree on finding a midpoint, but that can't happen with the existing bureaucracy. There are far too many people just sitting behind desks and that makes things harder. Civil service is boycotting government policies and governments nowadays consist of idiots whose middle name is "personal interest".

It's all in "Yes, Minister", really...

[ryaniomitch]

@MontyPython246 feeling the impact of the financial crisis that would have been avoided had we listen to Karl Marx. look at china today. biggest growing economy in the world, everything is made in china they're communists?

[MontyPython246]

@ryaniomitch Sure, Marx is fine, but communism as a whole consists of Stalinism (communism in only one country), Leninism (worldwide communism), Trotski and Rosa Luxemburg's theory (continuous revolution to preserve communism). It's messed up! Also, I wouldn't enjoy living in a world that everything would belong to the state: even the house I live in!

China: They are a growing economy indeed, but definatelly not communists.

[ryaniomitch]

@MontyPython246 china most differently are communist :S

now the whole validity of ur argument is lost 

[MontyPython246]

@ryaniomitch They are not communists because there just can't be a purely communist country the way things work in this time. They are also consumerists! You can't have both; a communist government and consumerism as a basis for economy.

The original political theories (socialism, communism, anarchism etc) can't work. Unfortunately, it is totalitarianism that will soon take the lead. Democracy is not working either, because people are both selfish and ignorant.

[mycatisamoron]

@monegarand So was Milton Friedman.

[HippyCalliach]

Marxism really is a pile of idealistic claptrap ...Marx said ' I don't know what I am ...but it's not a Marxist !' I rest my case :)

[MultiSmartass1]

@HippyCalliach Actually, Marxism is naively idealistic claptrap. The idea of the urban (or suburban) proletariat taking over the means of production posits a solely industrial society. The problem is that we live in a post-modern, post industrial service society. So the means of production have changed. Thus irrelvant

[HippyCalliach]

@MultiSmartass1 thats exactly my sentiment :)

[MultiSmartass1]

@HippyCalliach Fine point. This is not to say that left-wing thought is passe-it isn't. Just Marxist ideology.

[arguingplentifully]

Engels put together Volumes II and III of Capital from Marx's notes after he died. But Marx wrote all of Volume I himself and lived to see it published.

As far as Marx criticising obscure figures goes, his polemics could get out of hand (see The Holy Family). But the 'critique' was a key analytical tool for Marx, not just an embellishment. Marxism precisely claims to 'demystify' bourgeois society and expose the dynamics underlying its surface appearances. The critique is the point.

[arguingplentifully]

The great insight of Volume One of Capital is not that there were poor people in Victorian England, but that value is social labour and that the economy is not made up of 'value' or 'money' or 'the market', but of real squishy human beings working to meet other human beings' needs. Duh.

[Myndir]

Yes, although Marx may have picked the carrot theory of value and it would have been no less arbitrary.

[RevolutionarySpectre]

Carrots are not a universal ingredient of all commodities. They derive their equivelancy from that which they have in common with all other commodities.

[Myndir]

Labour is not an ingredient.

[HMservant]

oh sod it... let's go and kill someone!

[lexo30]

To be fair, some of the later stuff in Volume 1 of "Capital" is really powerful and moving writing - like when Marx is reporting on conditions for the poor in the north of England. Then, you can see why he wrote the book in the first place.

But this sketch tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Baader-Meinhof gang.

[MegaTeacher25]

Didn't Engels write part of Capital especially the best bits of it?

[lexo30]

Not as far as I know. Marx was sometimes a brilliant writer. Check out 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Buonaparte' for some brilliantly insightful political history/journalism. Unfortunately, he sometimes gets bogged down in turgid polemic against targets who aren't worth attacking in the first place. As far as I know, Engels only edited some of Capital, he didn't actually write the text. But I may be wrong.

[Bice404]

@lexo30 I second that. Someone should have held him back and told him to really skip the polemics and focus on what he himself had to say.

[lexo30]

@Bice404 - yeah, I take your point. But Marx wasn't really in it to be a Great Writer. I think that by the time he wrote Capital he saw himself as mostly a political activist, which is why he wasn't trying to make 'Capital' a perfect masterpiece of literature. But it does mean that for later generations, he spends a lot of time attacking targets that have now gone.

[IHaveTheQi]

@lexo30 It was Friedrich Engels really, he went out and saw all the actual poverty and harsh conditions of the workers in places like Manchester. Marx sat in the British Museum for ages writing while Engels did a lot of the actual legwork.

[lexo30]

@IHaveTheQi It's true that Engels went and saw it while Marx read about it, but that makes it all the more impressive that Marx wrote about it so powerfully.

[rumpraisin]

@lexo30 And Carlos The Jackal.

[welchm8]

I was wondering why this short, quote-filled 42-sec clip got a 5 star rating from so many, then after the punchline came I keeled over and gave it 5 stars myself!

[Ch3ckm4t3]

inspirational book lol

[TashkentFox]

LOL!

[Grunkovorda]

Same here! ;)

[Anarkokommunist]

Well, at least they tried!^_^

I'm reading the book right now, and it is not very difficult (the three first chapters are, but not tre rest).