Something I Don’t Think Gard Appreciates About Britain

User offline. Last seen 11 years 18 weeks ago.
Sophia
Number 741
Conspirator for: 13 years 21 weeks
Posted on: August 21, 2011 - 11:32am

Recently Gard kind of made out that the reason many in Britain are racked by class divide is due to us all being indoctrinated by Marxism.

Of course being racked by class couldn't have anything to do with Britain having a a royal family & that though the power of the monarch might be not b as great as they once were, the monarch still wields power & privilege because they happened to of been born into the right family. Having an individual who's able to wield power over on the basis they just so happened to of been born into the right family, really sends out a message that if you're not born into the right family you're never going to be able to have a proper say in how you're governed.

Let us not forget that as well as a monarch who has political power which isn't directly accountable to the electorate, the upper house of the British parliament (House of Lords) is also not directly accountable to the electorate.

Another reason many in Britain are racked by class wouldn't have anything to do with this country being governed by a bunch of wealthy Eton toffs, who have no idea how the other half lives because they wore the right school tie & so were groomed to be juiced into the system from a young age.

What chance have you got against a tie and a crest? - Eton Rifles by The Jam

Maybe the reason we are all obsessed by class in this country might have something to do with the decline of social mobility, if you're born poor you're more likely to stay poor in modern Britain.

I know some libertarians would like to believe that all socialists are enslaved to the dogma of Marx, but the truth is that most socialists haven't in fact read Marx & therefore whatever you might hear a socialist say which is only coincidental to what Marx wrote.

 


User offline. Last seen 12 years 30 weeks ago.
IggyStooge
Number 780
Conspirator for: 12 years 51 weeks
Posted on: August 21, 2011 - 11:51am #1

Sophia,

 

Gard hasn't said that Brits are "being indoctrinated". He's said that Marxism has been more popular in the UK and other European nations than it has in the US (or has been quicker in being accepted, overtly or subtley), and that perhaps this is because the US didn't have that feudal system which already had the lower classes (rightly) resenting the landed gentry. Gard has said that Marx was wiley and successful in supplanting the hatred for the feudal lords by replacing them with business owners. Although there is a real and important distinction between them (business owners have to work for customers to come their way, and they have to offer customers something they want -- while landed gentry are titled lords and get their stuff through bloodlines and aggression), Marx's ideas struck a chord with people who already disliked the "haves", and he was able to latch onto supposed "class envy", even though markets don't have "classes", in fact, they destroy the old class system.

Marx might not have even intentionally tried to formulate a theory that would so easily fit the hatred of the "haves" that already existed in feudal Europe, but whatever his intent, his ideas have flourished in Europe. The redsitribution of wealth, the welfare state, the regulation of businesses -- all are offshoots of the Marxist ideology, and all are the kinds of things that Europeans from Russia to England have embraced following the dissolution of their feudal systems. In the US, there was never this landed gentry, although there were special interests tied to the old crown and they tried to set up a US government that would favor mercantilism (ie Alexander Hamilton). The populace wasn't as ready for that kind of re-constituted class envy in the form of hatred of business that the Brits and other Europeans embraced. It's NOT indoctrination Gard is discussing, but a noticeable difference in cultural attitudes towards Marxism, and he is speculating as to the reason for the difference. I think his point is valid.


User offline. Last seen 11 years 18 weeks ago.
Sophia
Number 741
Conspirator for: 13 years 21 weeks
Posted on: September 8, 2011 - 10:56am #2

In regards to Marxism I often find that many people are ill educated about Marxism. Many people making assumptions about Marxism having not read Marx & instead rely upon the interpretations that others have made of Marxism. For instance Lenin interpreted & tweaked Marxism to suit his own agenda & more often then not this is the interpretation people judge Marxism by.

Marxism really shouldn’t be associated with communism but with anarchism (specifically Anarcho-syndicalism). Marx concluded that the workers would own the means of production & the state would disappear.