Collapse of the global financial system.

[cardigankid]

I don't claim to be a student of Marx, I come from an Anglo-Saxon hard work and free enterprise background, and as a boy saw the practical results of national strikes and flying pickets in the 60's. I have seen the bully boys and the freeloaders, the propaganda and the show-of-hands votes, the commissars and the waste. Therefore I have always regarded any form of socialism as extremely offensive at a basic moral level. To be fair I now regard some aspects of capitalism as equally offensive. More recently, I have found some of Marx's one liners quite insightful, but that's all.

Why, given what you are saying, has every Socialist (and whether you call them Communist, Marxist-Leninist or whatever is a refinement which again you had best explain if it is relevant) State which I have ever heard of, attempted to run a command economy and failed disastrously? Under Marx's concept, who is in charge, and if you say 'the people' you had best explain what you mean by that because we all know that means yet another bunch of oppressive and probably unelected politicians (a bit like the EU).

If you can enlighten us, we are listening.

Edited by cardigankid on Saturday 22 October 15:07