Comment by toyg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toyg | Hacker News Reader

This is a very American perspective, occasionally a bit flippant (dismissing 100+ years of Marx-influenced intellectuals in politics and economics as “not smart” is definitely not smart, particularly after 2008) and overall mediocre.

There is a lot of stereotyping, and it doesn’t account for the interest axis, i.e. the fact that a lot of very smart people simply do not care for organised politics in any way, shape, or form.

More importantly, it lacks knowledge of consensus mechanics beyond Overton, which is why it struggles to get to grip with the right side of the spectrum - which is, historically speaking, the most consistently successful side, at least in the short or medium term when any new political issue arises. Dismissing that as “I don’t know” shows embarrassingly poor subject knowledge.

So uhm, this piece could have been written by a 16-year-old trying to move his brain for the first time. That it comes from a much older and experienced person, somebody who holds a number of smart positions on other topics, to me is a signal that such person has done very little effort to actually study this particular field in depth.

Maybe it’s an attempt at showing that one can be not-smart about certain topics? If that were the case, I don’t think we really need it - Twitter and Facebook remind us every hour of every day that it is indeed the case.

It's PG's habit of using his own arbitrary measures of intelligence as a proxy for worthiness, and where these measures of intelligence are usually a function of the ability to make money.

Here’s an alternate take on your paragraph:

So uhm, this piece could have been written by a 16-year-old trying to move his brain for the first time. That it comes from a [billionaire founder of a private equity firm with a large platform], somebody who holds a number of smart positions on other topics, to me is a signal that such person [is engaged in an intentional effort to influence public opinion].

If it is, it’s a poor effort - if anything because it’s absolutely not original. You can see the array of similar sources posted in this thread as proof... when you are rehashing something that even Chris Rock has said, you are not influencing anything - unless the attempt was to keep the debate fundamentally frozen in place, which does not need help.

I don't think 2008 validates Marx. OK, he predicted worsening economic crises. So have a number of others, many of whom are not even close to Marxists. Does 2008 validate them, too? If not, why not? And if 2008 validates such contradictory positions, then being validated by 2008 doesn't mean very much.

The progressive dissociation of financial markets from real economic activity was the primary cause of 2008 - it’s the existence of credit derivatives that made it possible to crash the world economy. That’s very much a marxist prediction come true.

> OP: In the 20th century, a lot of very smart people were Marxists — just no one who was smart about the subjects Marxism involves.

In 40 years, the USSR, whose economy was about the size of Brazil's in 1917, and who waged a civil war and repelled two waves of invasions (the first of which included an invasion by the USA after WWI) - this country under Stalin had enormous economic growth, to where it could repel an invasion by continental Europe, then launch the first satellite, man on space, moon probe and whatnot. For a country that Lenin considered to be in a holding action waiting for revolution in the west. I find that impressive.

The western anti-Marxists went through an array of nonsense in the 20th century - "The End of History", the idea that Keynesian or monetarist or whatever remedies would smooth out the business cycle.

Marx predicted worsening economic crises like in 2000 or 2008, with accompanying unemployment, overproduction and a falling of profits. Lenin predicted an unquenchable and self-destructive drive for imperialism.

The best argument for Marxism isn't the USSR - it's China. They've actually managed to turn into a modern, mostly-developed country, though the process is most likely far from complete. The USSR was a dismal failure by comparison.

BTW, they're even launching their own space satelites, men in space, moon probes and whatnot lately.

But the way China turned into a modern, mostly-developed country was to turn away from what Marxism said about how to run an economy, and turn back at least part of the way to capitalism. What they kept from Marxism (or at least the Soviet Union) is the one-party dictatorship. So not that great an argument for Marxism after all.

Hey, I never said that this would be a great argument; I just think that it's the best available one.

> he first of which included an invasion by the USA after WWI

I'm not familiar with this event?

> this country under Stalin had enormous economic growth

Ironically this is the same argument used by capitalists and colonialists when they claim that a huge body count or deliberate famine was "worth it".

Probably this?

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-america-actu...

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