Recently I had a response to my blog post titled: Where is Marx When You Need Him. I'm going to attempt to respond to it using a method that I learned in Daniel Quinn's If They Give You Lined Paper Write Sideways. In that book he asks his readers to look for the unquestioned hidden assumptions in their own and other's thinking. I admit I don't do very well at this, but this will be good practice.
Responder: "There is something wrong with your argument, that high paying jobs should be saved even though they aren't warranted. And how could Karl Marx make things better?"
Me: Karl Marx can't make things better because he is dead. But I think we look at the world with the ideas that we hold in our heads. And I think it was Marx who came up with the idea that people don't have to labor for a wage that the owners of production have set up for him without a fight. In other words, a laborer doesn't have to be a wage slave that blows like a feather in the free market winds.
Responder: "Karl Marx would probably save your job and others like it but to the detriment of all. This is why the Soviet Union collapsed, because unnecessary jobs were constantly saved. Thus the whole communist economic system became unproductive and lazy, eventually atrophying and collapsing."
Me: Ah yes, you're letting me know that my job and others like it are unnecessary, and that people working jobs like mine are lazy, and we will be why the United States economic system collapses. The old I'm a burden on the taxpayer argument. But my job isn't supported with taxpayer dollars. It's payed for by pedaling stamps.
Responder: "The ending of unproductive jobs may not be the fairest thing to do. But it is one of those things that has help keep America dynamic and vital."
Me: In other words I should work for half of what I make and be a good patriot. No, I'll choose to be a prickly, pissed off citizen.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This sounds like a smarmy response.
Really, is Karl Marx dead? To bad some of his ideas didn't die with him. His kind of economics were and are unsustainable. And keeping unproductive jobs just for the sake of it would be unsustainable for the Post Office.
Curt,
"No, I'll choose to be a prickly, pissed off citizen."
Hey, I am all for that. It makes for a better and vibrant society, having prickly, pissed of citizens. It adds to the mix and the proceedings. But I don't think that would be possible under Marxism.
However, you have to think of there being the other side that is going to push back on your prickliness.
That is the way of the dialectic, which ironically Marxism puts a kibosh on.
airth10,
You wrote: "This sounds like a smarmy response."
Me: Interpret it however you'd like.
You wrote: "Really, is Karl Marx dead? To bad some of his ideas didn't die with him."
Me: I don't think ideas die. Like the gods, they find ways of entering our lives again and again.
You wrote: "His kind of economics were and are unsustainable."
Me: I have no interest in arguing the sustainability of an economy based on Marxist ideas.
You wrote: "And keeping unproductive jobs just for the sake of it would be unsustainable for the Post Office."
Me: I like the idea of unproductive jobs. I don't worship at the altar of production. I'm a romantic. There's room for us, too!
You wrote: "It makes for a better and vibrant society, having prickly, pissed of citizens. It adds to the mix and the proceedings. But I don't think that would be possible under Marxism."
Me: You're probably right. You definately seem to know more about Marxism than me. So, I'll take your word on it.
You wrote: However, you have to think of there being the other side that is going to push back on your prickliness.
Me: There is no other side for me. I dont see this as an either/or argument.
Post a Comment