# Alright. So communism doesn't work... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 25, 2002, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alright-so-communism-doesnt-work/105589 "2002-04-25T18:17:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Demosthenesian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Demosthenesian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demosthenesian)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alright-so-communism-doesnt-work/105589/41 "2002-04-26T05:36:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lobley \* > \*\* > > You are implying a cyclic pattern of collapse and replace. Capitalism doesn’t do that. I just gets more and more and more close to failure. companies are bigger and bigger and fewer and fewer.\*\* “All free markets are failed cartels”. Damned if I can remember who said that, but it’s a lovely quote. You might want to try to reconcile that point with the reality that small business is still quite present in the modern economy, thanks. Hype and cyclical merger fever aside, we haven’t quite ended up with Marx’s small band of ultra-powerful industrialists quite yet. > [@](#): > > \*\*I am not a communist myself. I just had quite a long conversation about it and marx with someone not long ago, before which I knew nothing, after which I understood the concepts enough to contribute to these for and against arguments. > \*\* Ahem. As somebody who has had to study quite a bit of Marx lately, I can say without any hesitation whatsoever that you haven’t the faintest clue about either Marx, Marxism, or the debate between Marxist political economy and Neo-classical Economics. Hell, I’m not even confident _I_ understand the whole thing well enough, and I’ve spent a fair number of threads debating it at this point. People have built their careers on interpreting, supporting or dismissing Marx, and you’re confident enough to try to debate it based on a conversation? Still, if you’re that interested, go to [www.marxists.org](http://www.marxists.org) and try to learn a little about what you’re arguing in favour of first. (Heck, if you can wade through all of Capital, you’re a better man than I.) ---
**Author:** ![Demosthenesian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Demosthenesian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demosthenesian)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2002, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alright-so-communism-doesnt-work/105589/42 "2002-04-26T06:00:18Z")
By the way, lobley, what I think the other member of that conversation was referring to was Marx’s observation that capitalism tends to embroil itself in periodic crises (or recessions/depressions) and his explanation of the cause of that. His explanation was good: John Maynard Keynes’ explanation, however, was far better, and he actually had a solution for it. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2002, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alright-so-communism-doesnt-work/105589/43 "2002-04-26T16:24:11Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** All right, everyone knock it off with the personal stuff–which includes you too, **lobley**. There has in fact been a good deal of substantive discussion of your OP in this thread; I would advise you to concentrate on that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alright-so-communism-doesnt-work/105589.md?page=2)