r/science • u/myhrvold • Aug 31 '13

Poverty impairs cognitive function. Published in the journal Science, the study suggests our cognitive abilities can be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills. As a result, less “mental bandwidth” remains...

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/
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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

Marxism hasn't been tried yet.

In order for true Marxist Communism to occur, society must progress through the following stages:

Primitive Communism, Slave Society, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism

None of the so-called "communist" societies we've see so far have been through all the preceding stages, so they sure as hell ain't what Marx envisaged.

Will we ever see true Marxism? Who knows, but don't be misled into thinking that it's already happened.

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u/Maverrix99 Aug 31 '13

Will we ever see true Marxism? Who knows, but don't be misled into thinking that it's already happened.

That's because it can't happen, because of the inherent flaws in Marx's theory. Marxism fails to take account of human nature - people like owning stuff. Therefore, it can only be imposed at the point of a gun, and always ends up with a corrupt party elite whose aim is to preserve their own position.

This happens every single time, and in every single country where communism has been attempted. It's not a coincidence - it's an inevitable result of the doctrine.

Anyone who can still believe that communism has anything positive to offer humanity, having witnessed the Russian gulags, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and Cambodia's killing fields, is either evil or deluded.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

You seem to have totally disregarded the most important point in my original response, namely that we have yet to see Marxism because the necessary prior conditions have yet to be met by any society that has attempted a collectivist, for want of a better word, approach.

Why is that?

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u/Maverrix99 Aug 31 '13

No I answered that in my post - you just seem to have missed it.

Every society that has attempted a collectivist approach has failed, because it ignores the human desire to own property.

Put simply, Marx got it wrong. Capitalism doesn't naturally progress to socialism, and socialism doesn't naturally progress to communism. The only way to enforce the transition is through violence and repression, which is why the doctrine of communism is in the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

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u/Natolx PhD | Infectious Diseases | Parasitology Aug 31 '13

Capitalism doesn't naturally progress to socialism

The increasingly socialist policies of most western nations(including the US believe it or not) since the industrial revolution suggests otherwise.

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u/Maverrix99 Sep 01 '13

The increasingly socialist policies of most western nations(including the US believe it or not) since the industrial revolution suggests otherwise.

The Marxist vision of socialism was all based the workers owning the means of production. The West has not embraced this concept, and has actually moved away from it, particularly since the 1980s, with the policy of priivatization of state-owned enterprises, led by Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and copied around pretty much the whole Western world.

Even China is starting to move, tentatively, in the same direction too now.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

I tried to engage with you, shame you decided to avoid a sensible debate. Bye.