Greg the White wrote:

There's a political cartoon called Filibuster that I usually wrote off as typical passive-agressive political cartoon crap, but has gotten better in recent years. The writer is a very thoughtful conservative who can make a lot of great points that scrape at my ideology a little. He made a great write-up on the state of conservatism that pretty much sums it up as more of a fashion statement than an ideology (in terms of public presentation, anyway). I think that the people who criticize the problems among their own ideological set are the most important people in politics. They remove structural weakness, and reinforce what makes them strong. Here's the cartoon (and the well-written essay below it): http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index.php/2012/11/15/the-gops-purity-problem/

I was enjoying reading that until i got to:

Quote:

Now, what should separate conservatism from doctrinaire pseudoscience philosophies like Marxism

I have no problem with him disagreeing with Marxism or thinking it's outdated or whatever but to call it pseudoscience is the highest level of retardation and to me he lost all credit in his argument.

He seems like the guy who throws out big words to sound intelligent. When i read this all i saw was a right winger throwing a hissy fit and just using random insults with no backing to support why this is so.

Greg the White wrote:

It's an apt word in this case. Marxism is basically founded on the belief that all rich people are self-obsessed and parsimonious, and all poor people are hard-working and exploited. Pretty much any political philosophy is that way, but I can see how it's annoying when anyone views their political views as inherently correct.

Within the context it seems to me like an insult but applying it accurately and calling Marxism psuedoscience is absolutely ridiculous and seriously misinformed. Especially in terms of academia where Marxism is highly discussed and used in critique of capitalism or social conditions in the humanities and social sciences. It is blatantly obvious that this guy is not an academic in the slightest.

Hell, the worlds most cited academic geographer and one of the top 20 authors cited in the humanities in the world is a Marxist Geographer - David Harvey so i can't really see it being a pseudointellectual or pseudoscientific topic.

I mean i can't speak for all different areas of academia but although people may disagree with Marxism in terms of its political ideology but what a lot of people don't even know (often who criticise Marxism and are too busy saying "oh it will never work" which it won't but some of its contents are admirable) that it is highly influential and it's contents have influenced both fields in which i studied: geography and town planning.

To put it briefly into perspective. If Marxism didn't influence geography or planning we would still be designing cities or space by using mathematics alone. Social issues would not be considered in the slightest.

This may seem extremely retarded or absurd but it is due to Marxism that things today for example the consideration of housing and class or in general the relationship between space and sociology are even considered. It was literally not a consideration at all before the adoption of said ideology. To show that i am not making this up:

Quote:

Marxist geography is radical in nature and its primary criticism of the positivist spatial science centered on the latter's methodologies, which failed to demonstrate or account for the mechanisms of capitalism and exploitation that underlie human spatial arrangements. As such, early Marxist geographers were explicitly political in advocating for social change and activism; they sought, through application of geographical analysis of social problems, to alleviate poverty and exploitation in capitalist societies. Marxist geography makes exegetical claims regarding how the deep-seated structures of capitalism act as a determinant and a constraint to human agency. Most of these ideas were developed in the early 1970s by dissatisfied quantitative geographers

To just cast this aside as psuedoscience just proves that this guy knows absolutely nothing about this.

Again as an insult he is entitled to use it but it is used extremely incorrectly based on what i said above. My own personal beliefs are not even coming into this, the fact of the matter is that what he has stated is flat out wrong. There is no basis that Marxism is a pseudo-science considering it is widely adopted within the sciences as an ideology and has largely influenced how social issues are tackled today.

EDIT: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.1979.tb00796.x/abstract

Hahaha, i actually found a paper that explicitly states the role of Marxist theory in shaping urban form and social progress in the United States. Damn that psuedoscience!

LeshLush wrote:

The Manifesto is more, "Hey, let's say stuff in a really angry way to see if we can get Europe to riot."

Which essentially happened.

Lots of socialist rioting in Berlin through the 1890s to the early 20th century.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/63763581

EDIT: Not to mention that it was highly relevant at the time. The Communist Manifesto was written in London towards the end of 19th century when basically London was 90% slums and poverty was abundant. The times when children were forced to work in factories and quality of life was essentially non-existent.

It's not difficult to see why it was so relevant at the times. The factory owners pretty much exploiting their labour force, they worked in shit conditions were they could basically die and just be dumped onto the street to get replaced by some other guy who would get the same shit wage.

Hell this was the time when trade unions began to be established (literally a few years after the English version was released) due to the poor conditions and inequality.

Of course it's not surprising that conditions were shit considering the elite didn't give two fucks about their workforce. They were just rich aristrocrats in power who would trample over as many people as possible just to get money.

Pretty much like the conservatives do today really. Fast forward to today. The rich still don't give two fucks about the poor or reducing inequality or any of those things.

My favorite example is Canary Wharf in London. It used to be a large area of dockland before the private sector swooped in and regenerated the whole area while of course removing the working class housing from it.

"Don't worry!" The private sector shouted. We will make new jobs for you with our sparkling new buildings.

...and so they made the new buildings which became office space and banks where the local working class population couldn't be employed because they didn't have the skills to work there.

...and so the private sector laughed at these mere plebians as the money rolled in and a fraction of it came their way.

..and that kiddies is why trickle down economics doesn't work and the conservatives don't give a fuck about you.

For more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/15/canary-wharf-east-london-myth

Here's my favorite part of how good old trickle down has saved the day once again:

Quote:

Thatcherites, early on, liked to think their race-to-the-bottom policies on wages and unions might rejuvenate British industry, but Canary Wharf is the place where that was shown up for the myth it always was. Instead, old money got computers, built itself glass skyscrapers, hid its old-school ties and transformed itself into a gigantic offshore money-making mechanism. The ludicrous nonsense of "trickle-down economics" is exposed in Canary Wharf more than anywhere else in Europe. A 10-minute walk away is Balfron Tower, a listed, proud but under-maintained tower of council housing, designed by the architect Erno Goldfinger, currently owned by a housing association. Recently it emerged that renovations there would have to be paid for by selling the flats on the open market. There was no other way of raising money, apparently. And just opposite is some of the most apparently overflowing wealth in world history. Around Balfron Tower you can find the largely low-rise Lansbury estate, built as part of the Festival of Britain, similarly covered in grime and pigeon shit and beset by rampant unemployment; or Robin Hood Gardens, where an architectural hoo-ha over impending demolition has masked another incursion of Canary Wharf's bankers and its values into the area. If anyone in any of these estates has seen anything trickle down it would be an unpleasant-smelling liquid running from a great height.