Who here has actually read a Marx work?

[ovcatto]

Originally Posted by evilnewbie

no matter what intrinsic reward you get, nobody cares... that intrinsic doesn't last very long when it becomes "work"

The process of intrinsic nature of work giving way to alienation (work as drudgery) are part of capitalism as Marx, David Émile Durkheim and C. Wright Mills pointed to in their writings. That being said, millions of workers continue to find self worth the work they do, not the money that they make as a result of it.

... whats to stop the little league coach from saying, well not tonight I don't feel like it.... nothing stops him... nothing stops ANYONE...

Nothing stops a paid employee from not showing up for work but I dare say that the attendance record of little league coaches is far more spotless than the average wage worker.

a system cannot work because people do not work for free... unless you like brownouts/blackouts/food shortages or whatever, people do not do things for free... if left to their own innate nature,

Is your argument that humans are innately lazy? That would certainly go against the vast expanse of human history. The person who invented the wheel didn't do so, because they were paid, it may have made their life easier but it wasn't the profit motive that lead to its invention. We had yet to arrive at that level of specialization.

Who here likes to work garbage dumps or sewer lines? hm.... continuation of a society only goes so far even Marx thinks it never ends.... not true at all... people don't work for free... but it is nice to think that if I go fishing cause I enjoy it, people will consider that a job and that I am working for free... but not in the real world... you can never maximize someone's material needs, that is a recognized fallacy in itself......

If you will go back and READ my earlier post, the argument, at least my argument wasn't that at this point in time that people will work all jobs for free, but having said that even under Marx's analysis no one works for "free" since society provide certain material goods in exchange for one's service to society. Marx had no tolerance for the lumpen proletariat.

[ovcatto]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

When a man makes up all those great sounding words he should explain how we get there. When people read him and don't really understand it makes sense to me that they will miss as so many have up to now.

Marx's didn't lay down a formula because a formula in Marx's mind wasn't necessary. The transformation from capitalism would be as natural a transformation as the transformation from feudalism to nascent capitalism.

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

What we knew back in the early 20th century just wasn't much more than that capitalism is bad because Marx didn't explain how to get from point A to Point B and since nobody knew many tried to make the trip.

Now that so many know what has to be done, who is going to get it done.

Again, how many college students do we have in this thread? If any, at all, how many of you are majoring in anything other than some social science?

Marx felt that capitalists would get us from the market based world of Adam Smith to the new world of the commune and collective non-market of the future. The very motive force of capitalism would create a unneeded unemployed majority, the Darwinist competition would lead to monopolies and a shrinking bourgoise because not everyone can be a winner, it would push technology to unimagined heights and increase alienation in a society separated from control over the most basic of lifes needs. The end stage of capitalism would be a world of violence, imperialism and for most a world in which they had no incentive to work or even pay attention. One school of Marxists believed all we had to do was let the capitalist world dig its own grave and thus Marxists simply needed to keep ones head down until the dust settled. This might take generations but one just needed the faith that we would get there. This is a Marxist version of the Second Coming and the dawn of a New Millenium. Other Marxists and socialists didn't want to wait for something they wouldn't see and maybe even their grandchildren might not see either. This was the school that Lenin, Trotsky and Mao attended and they wanted to be Captalisms grave diggers. They knew that in a world of scarcity that society needed a leadership class to call the shots in place of capitalists and hence the need of a small party of specialists to dictate to society in place of the capitalists. It is no surprise this might appeal to people like Lenin or Trotsky or Mao who were priveleged members of their societies who were part of the top 1% who attended universities. So Lenin replaced the bankers , nobility and the capitalists with the Soviets or leadership collective. This is the Marxist version of regardless of the system capitalist or socialist every thing always comes out square.