Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

2008-04-29T03:46:33Z

Sachlichkeit: New page: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas) is a memorial located in the German city of Berlin, dedicated to the Jewish victims of the [...

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas) is a memorial located in the [[German]] city of [[Berlin]], dedicated to the Jewish victims of the [[Holocaust]].

The memorial was designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. Their winning design was selected in a national competition, and construciton was completed on December 15, 2004. The memorial consists of a 5 acre site covered with 2,00 concrete slabs which are arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The slabs are 8 feet long, 3 feet wide, and vary in height from 1 foot to 16 feet tall. Eisenman has stated that the memorial was designed to create an uneasy and confusing atmosphere that force the individual into a state of reflection. Likewise, in Eisenman's project text, the design is intended to twist an ordered system of geometric shapes into a system that has lost touch with human reason. An attached underground "Place of Information" contains the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.

== References ==

[http://isurvived.org/InTheNews/Memorial2MurderedJews.html Holocaust Survivors Network--Remembering the Unimaginable]

[http://www.war-memorial.net/mem_det.asp?ID=104 Polynational War Memorial]

Thomas Hobbes

2008-04-29T03:26:44Z

Sachlichkeit:

[[Image:Bhmvgjhfj.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Thomas Hobbes''' (1588-1679) was an English [[philosopher]] notable as one of the founders of [[social contract]] theory, and a forerunner of [[British empiricism]]. As a [[materialism|materialist]], his concept of human existence excluded the [[soul]], with the [[mind]] being given a purely mechanical explanation. He was widely rumoured during his lifetime to be an atheist, which was illegal on 16th century England.

Hobbes saw matter in motion as the only reality. To him even consciousness and thought were but the byproducts of atoms moving in the brain.<ref>The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989</ref>

According to Hobbes's most famous work ''Leviathan'' (1651), life for humans prior to the foundation of the social contract was "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short". Humans had to form collectives in order to protect themselves from each other. This idea was extended by [[John Locke]], who held (most notably in his ''Second Treatise on Government'') that collectivisation was necessary for the promotion of economic growth. Hobbes's love of strong leadership led him to support monarchy, although he took the view that any strong government was better than nothing, and the stronger the better.

: ''Government should be like unto a man, strong and hard'' (''Leviathan'' xvii).

==References==

<References/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hobbes, Thomas}}

[[Category:Philosophers]]

Axis Mundi

2008-04-29T03:23:45Z

Sachlichkeit: New page: The axis mundi, greek for 'central axis', also known as the also cosmic axis, world pillar and center of the world, is a ubiquitous symbol that crosses human cultures. The image expresses ...

The axis mundi, greek for 'central axis', also known as the also cosmic axis, world pillar and center of the world, is a ubiquitous symbol that crosses human cultures. The image expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet--a point that expresses a unity in how human beings experience space.

From a spiritual perspective, this is the point in which travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. The axis represents the space where God (the vertical) is accessable to man, who lives in the world (the horizontal). The axis mundi is therefore central in the design of [[churches]] and [[shrines]].

In Asian cultures, the axis mundi is often represented by the [[Bodhi Tree]], [[Mount Fuji]], and the [[Kunlun Mountains]]. In the Christian tradition, [[Jacob's Ladder]], the [[Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil]], the [[Holy Cross]], and the [[Garden of Eden]] are all seen as representations of the axis mundi. Native American cultures viewed the [[black hills]] as an axis mundi--likewise, central american civilizations constructed temples such as the ones at [[Teotihuacán]] to represent the ascension of man to heaven.

Classical Liberal

2008-04-25T10:20:46Z

Sachlichkeit:

Classical liberalism (also called laissez-faire liberalism) is a term used to describe the following:

* the philosophy developed by early liberals from the Enlightenment until [[John Stuart Mill]]
* the philosophy developed by early liberals from the Age of Enlightenment until John Stuart Mill and revived in the 20th century by [[Friedrich Hayek]] and [[Milton Friedman]]. The contemporary restatement of classical liberalism is sometimes called "new liberalism" or "neo-liberalism"

Classical liberalism is a political philosophy that supports individual rights as pre-existing the state, a government that exists to protect those moral rights, ensured by a constitution that protects individual autonomy from other individuals and governmental power, private property, and a laissez-faire economic policy. The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that in an environment of laissez-faire, a spontaneous order of cooperation in exchanging goods and services emerges that satisfies human wants. It is a blend of political liberalism and economic liberalism which is derived from Enlightenment thinkers such as as [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[John Locke]], [[Adam Smith]], [[Voltaire]], [[John Stuart Mill]], and [[Immanuel Kant]].

Many elements of this ideology developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, and it is often seen as being the natural ideology of the industrial revolution and its subsequent capitalist system. The early liberal figures now described as "classical liberals" rejected many foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the [[Divine Right of Kings]], hereditary status, and established religion, and focuses on individual freedom, reason, justice and tolerance. Such thinkers and their ideas helped to inspire the American Revolution and French Revolution.

The qualification "classical" was applied in retrospect to distinguish the early 19th century laissez-faire form of liberalism from modern interventionist social liberalism. The terminology is most applicable in the United States, because modern American liberalism is closer identified with [[social democracy]].

Classical Liberal

2008-04-25T10:17:42Z

Sachlichkeit: New page: Classical liberalism (also called laissez-faire liberalism) is a term used to describe the following: * the philosophy developed by early liberals from the Enlightenment until [[John Stua...

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:38:33Z

Sachlichkeit:

'''Marxism''' is an intellectual movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]]. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which emerges after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy, much like the American Constitution is the manifestation of social contract theory and property rights theory developed by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and [[John Locke]]. Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as Lennin and Mao to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew to be an extremely popular political movement in late 19th century western industrial democracies. However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America. As a result, a world communist state like Marx envisioned was never realized.

==Soviet experience==

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.

==Nomenkatura==

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

== Ideology ==

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories, as well as many practical limitations. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:37:59Z

Sachlichkeit:

'''Marxism''' is an intellectual movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]]. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?hl=xx-elmer&id=Q2GzsvWurCMC&dq=Communism&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=qdFakHZ42E&sig=lbr-xzNNXbR9El53DoQOjOW7SI4]. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which emerges after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy, much like the American Constitution is the manifestation of social contract theory and property rights theory developed by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and [[John Locke]]. Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as Lennin and Mao to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew to be an extremely popular political movement in late 19th century western industrial democracies. However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America. As a result, a world communist state like Marx envisioned was never realized.

==Soviet experience==

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.

==Nomenkatura==

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

== Ideology ==

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories, as well as many practical limitations. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:35:21Z

Sachlichkeit:

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:33:54Z

Sachlichkeit:

'''Marxism''' is an intellectual movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]]. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which emerges after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy, much like the American Constitution is the manifestation of social contract theory and property rights theory developed by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and [[John Locke]]. Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as Lennin and Mao to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew to be an extremely popular political movement in late 19th century western industrial democracies. However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America. As a result, a world communist state like Marx envisioned was never realized.

==Soviet experience==

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.

==Nomenkatura==

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

== Ideology ==

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:32:45Z

Sachlichkeit:

'''Marxism''' is an intellectual movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]]. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which emerges after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy, much like the American Constitution is the manifestation of social contract theory and property rights theory developed by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and [[John Locke]]. Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as Lennin and Mao to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew to be an extremely popular political movement in late 19th century western industrial democracies. However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America.

==Soviet experience==

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.

==Nomenkatura==

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

== Ideology ==

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]

Marxism

2008-04-24T11:31:20Z

Sachlichkeit:

'''Marxism''' is an intellectual movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]]. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which emerges after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy, much like the American Constitution is the manifestation of social contract theory and property rights theory. Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as Lennin and Mao to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew to be an extremely popular political movement in late 19th century western industrial democracies. However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America.

==Soviet experience==

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.

==Nomenkatura==

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

== Ideology ==

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]