# Small business in a Marxist economy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 15, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737 "2014-03-15T01:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zero-syde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Zero-syde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zero-syde)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/41 "2014-03-15T17:49:50Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Utter crap. You are just projecting a familiar contemporary model onto a communistic social order. Not sure where you are getting this “theory” from, but it sure does not sound like a reputable source to me (especially if it resorts to tired clichés like “taking the fruits of your labor”). "Utter crap? Right back at you, and really, that’s all of a reply you deserve. When you learn how to avoid really piss poor fallacies (“you used ‘fruits of labor’ ergo you can’t have credible sources”), perhaps we can have a real conversation. Perhaps it might be enlightening for you to realize that you clearly understand what I mean by “fruits of labor,” which is the point of - I dunno - communication. I use that phrase because it’s a well recognized convenience, it doesn’t come from theory. Sometimes, when explaining concepts, you have to use words or phrases that communicate with non-technical audiences. The fact that you understood completely what I meant means its use is justified. > [@](#): > > We can only guess how a communist economic system would function, based on what we know and what we can imagine. We have had kibbutzes in Israel, and individual communes in the US and some other countries, but these only give us the vaguest hints about how a real, national communist system would be structured. Here you are missing the entire point. You are trying to answer a radically different question than the OP asked. One is “Given a real-world economy which attempts but fails to reach the Marxian Ideal, what is the likely way in which a small business would form?” and the other, very different question is “How does small business work in an Ideal Marxian society.” What you are doing rather the same as answering “how would Gandalf fight Nuzgal” with “well, Gandalf wouldn’t fight Nuzgal because neither wizards nor ring wraiths exist” - the OP himself has said that he’s asking about the framework Marx presented, which means that his question assumes the same assumptions Marx assumed. If you bothered to pay attention to the conversation, this would be obvious. > [@](#): > > And given that this thing we call “capitalism” is just a prettified form of feudalism Learn your isms. If you honestly believe that capitalism (a loose economic order in which individuals are allowed free or at least nearly free enterprise) and feudalism (a hereditary, hierarchical socio-political organization wherein the desire for security from local threats is leveraged against property and labor) are one and the same, or even in any way derivative, you are living in a fantasy universe or just have no idea what those words mean. > [@](#): > > but with a touch of class mobility, one would have to assume that purist communism based on theory is itself unrealistic. A practical system requires a certain amount of compromise in order to be stable, discussing theoretical communism is as ridiculous as discussing libertarian theory without trying to explain how it would actually work. Yes, a practical system requires compromise - usually to human nature, the laws of physics, available resources, technological limits, ect - but just saying this doesn’t mean that what was outlined lacks those compromises - in fact, you’ve failed completely to even specify what those compromises _are_. And no, discussing a theory is not “ridiculous.” In order to effectively analyze a theory, you must at least understand how it works. **If you don’t understand a theoretical system, you cannot know if it is feasible to implement**. > [@](#): > > Missing is the idea that enterprise could begin with one or two people and grow organically from there. No it isn’t, this is just your assertion. Yes, the system is less condusive to this (because things are strictly democratic, a group of people asking for limited resources is almost always going to get them over an individual) but there is nothing preventing an individual from launching an enterprise and growing it. What _would not_ be allowed would be for that individual to continue collecting from that enterprise after he’s ceased laboring for it (that is, he can’t just be an “investor” or “owner” he must also do work in the business). > [@](#): > > I would think that would be the most common thing, because, you see, proper communism shucks off the enormous overhead of capitalism (the financial sector), which means people would only have to work half as much, or even less, because they are not working to support wealthy parasites. That doesn’t make any bloody sense. People might have higher wages, sure. But one, depending on the level of economic control the state choses to exercise, there may be quotas that require people to work 10 times harder rather than half as much. Two Having no capitalist class does not mean you have a smaller population - in fact, with less wealth concentration there will be _more_ demand even with the exact same population (100 individual with 10k dollars buy 100 pairs of shoes, while 1 individual with $901k buys perhaps 2 pairs of really pricey shoes and the 99 families with 1k don’t buy any because that money is spent on food+shelter) and more aggregate demand means you’ll have a higher aggregate price level. Whether the price level outweights the increase in wages depends on many variables, but you _cannot_ conclude that in all cases less work would be required. > [@](#): > > Hence, the average person would have a lot more free time on their hands to explore alternative ideas and processes. The idea of more free time from a communist system is actually a byproduct of an ideal command economy. Rather than making 10k shoes because someone thinks shoes are a great business, the government orders 100 shoes because that’s all that “needs to be made.” Since the factory’s quota is 100 shoes, if it has say 10 workers then each worker is responsible for 10 shoes and gets paid for the production of 10 shoes rather than the hours spent on working for an indeterminate amount of shoes. Critics of free enterprise will say “since the worker gets paid for hours rather than production, he is incentivised maximize the amount of time it takes to produce one unit” wheras if he were paid by matching his quota, this would turn into “he is incentivised to minimize the amount of time” and the 4 hours it takes him to make his 10 shoes in this ideal command economy vs the 8 hours he’d work in a capitalist society leaves him with 4 hours of leisure. Or so the argument goes. It has nothing to do with the capital class, except that the capital class is motivated to produce as many shoes as there exists a potential for profit. > [@](#): > > Again it is all guesswork, one has to look at how our current society functions (in detail) and speculate on what we would change in order to improve it. Using raw theory is simply unrealistic, because if some form of communism could become stable, I can guarantee you it would not look like theory or prior example. This is a complete nonstarter, considering the context of the discussion. Did you honestly miss what the OP has been saying throughout the thread? ---
**Author:** ![Zero-syde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Zero-syde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zero-syde)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/42 "2014-03-15T17:56:04Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > that sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to split up profits by vote… It gets _really_ problematic when you think about how large those communes would have to be. There’s also concerns in a democratic system about self interest overriding proper compensation, leading to people refusing to do jobs that ought to be compensated more (The factory floor worker glares at the accountant, demanding to know why he gets a higher pay and subsequently votes for the accountant to get less pay than the “real men” doing the “real work” on the floor. As there are probably ten factory workers to one accountant or more, the vote passes almost unanimously. The accountant, swamped by an already overwhelming volume of work because the company vote refused to hire the “overpaid, paper-pushing weeny” some assistance, throws his arms up in frustration at the news of another pay cut and puts on a hard hat). Marx’s theory wasn’t ironclad, which is why I’m not a communist. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/43 "2014-03-15T18:01:21Z")
> [@Zero-syde](#): > > Here you are missing the entire point. You are trying to answer a radically different question than the OP asked. > > One is “Given a real-world economy which attempts but fails to reach the Marxian Ideal, what is the likely way in which a small business would form?” and the other, very different question is “How does small business work in an Ideal Marxian society.” > > Learn your isms. If you honestly believe that capitalism (a loose economic order in which individuals are allowed free or at least nearly free enterprise) and feudalism (a hereditary, hierarchical socio-political organization wherein the desire for security from local threats is leveraged against property and labor) are one and the same, or even in any way derivative, you are living in a fantasy universe or just have no idea what those words mean. 1- thank you for your response 2- i’m not against the idea of a “theoretical” answer as long as keep in mind it is theoretical. i wouldn’t under any circumstance take it as the final answer. 3- capitalism is not akin to feudalism, that is extreme, but neither is it as easy to move up the social/financial ladder as people make out. in other words, there are a lot of hard working poor people, some of them even very intelligent. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/44 "2014-03-15T18:02:40Z")
> [@Zero-syde](#): > > It gets _really_ problematic when you think about how large those communes would have to be. There’s also concerns in a democratic system about self interest overriding proper compensation, leading to people refusing to do jobs that ought to be compensated more (The factory floor worker glares at the accountant, demanding to know why he gets a higher pay and subsequently votes for the accountant to get less pay than the “real men” doing the “real work” on the floor. As there are probably ten factory workers to one accountant or more, the vote passes almost unanimously. The accountant, swamped by an already overwhelming volume of work because the company vote refused to hire the “overpaid, paper-pushing weeny” some assistance, throws his arms up in frustration at the news of another pay cut and puts on a hard hat). > > Marx’s theory wasn’t ironclad, which is why I’m not a communist. that sounds very valid to me ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/45 "2014-03-16T03:15:09Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > But even leaving that aside, Marxism requires that human beings will (A) Kill all everyone above the proletariat . . . No, I think it only requires that they be expropriated, deprived of all or some of their property. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/46 "2014-03-16T03:48:59Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > ok, thanks, i am just learning about this topic. would you say Marx’s basic criticism’s of Capitalism are valid but his solution is faulty or are his criticisms just as faulty as well? It’s a mixed bag. Some of his points are valid, some are not. Mostly not. Many of the criticisms _are_ faulty, such as the labor theory of value. Or, Marx’s romantic yearning for the agriculture and craft labor of pre-industrial Germany. From _The Communist Manifesto_: > [@](#): > > Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. > … > Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. > … > The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Like Jefferson or Virgil, however, Marx himself never did any of the backbreaking agricultural work or painstaking, inefficient craft labor, so it was quite easy for him to pine for it over the noisy machines and military discipline of industrial labor. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/47 "2014-03-16T06:32:33Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > How would a small business like a restaurant, a dress shop, a day care center or a put put course be run? They would be owned by the state AFAIK. If it was a restaurant the service and food would generally be poor, _relative to the restaurants that opened up soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall_, at least in Czechoslovakia. Incidentally, a lot of the food stores were specialty ventures. For example, there would be a chain of stores selling milk and cheese. The name of that chain, as posted in block letters above the door, would be **Milk Cheese**. Another chain might be called **Meat** - I’ll leave the reader to guess what they sold. Admittedly there was also one called **Grocery**. One saying in the old Soviet Union was, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/48 "2014-03-16T08:01:11Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > It’s a mixed bag. Some of his points are valid, some are not. Mostly not. Many of the criticisms _are_ faulty, such as the labor theory of value. Or, Marx’s romantic yearning for the agriculture and craft labor of pre-industrial Germany. From _The Communist Manifesto_: > > Like Jefferson or Virgil, however, Marx himself never did any of the backbreaking agricultural work or painstaking, inefficient craft labor, so it was quite easy for him to pine for it over the noisy machines and military discipline of industrial labor. 1- but this is common. most (if not all) of the impressionist painters that painted the poor struggling peasants, were usually from well off families, families that could afford art lessons or the connections to set up an apprenticeship. 2- does this make Marx’s comments less valid? I’m reading the communist Manifesto right now, and those passages kind of resonated with me. 3- Thanks for your responses 🙂 > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > They would be owned by the state AFAIK. If it was a restaurant the service and food would generally be poor, _relative to the restaurants that opened up soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall_, at least in Czechoslovakia. > > Incidentally, a lot of the food stores were specialty ventures. For example, there would be a chain of stores selling milk and cheese. The name of that chain, as posted in block letters above the door, would be **Milk Cheese**. Another chain might be called **Meat** - I’ll leave the reader to guess what they sold. Admittedly there was also one called **Grocery**. > One saying in the old Soviet Union was, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” very apt description. thanks for replying 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/49 "2014-03-16T08:39:11Z")
I have long wondered exactly why Communism in Russia collapsed. I think it was because Stalin made things so bad and was so arbitrary, and later the leaders because of Stalin had no zeal for the ideology and just held to the reigns of power like one holds the tail of a tiger. Another popular expression was, “To get along, go along.” ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/50 "2014-03-16T08:42:56Z")
> [@Frank\_Merton](#): > > I have long wondered exactly why Communism in Russia collapsed. I think it was because Stalin made things so bad and was so arbitrary, and later the leaders because of Stalin had no zeal for the ideology and just held to the reigns of power like one holds the tail of a tiger. Another popular expression was, “To get along, go along.” Are you not underplaying it a bit? As much as I love the idea of Marxism/Communism as an Ideal, it failed, HORRIBLY, in the most brutal and oppressive ways. Conversely, I think Democratic Socialism works almost as well as communism failed… ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/51 "2014-03-16T11:19:36Z")
The collapse of Communism in Russia did not happen during the brutal times but during liberalization. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/52 "2014-03-16T12:48:31Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > 1- but this is common. most (if not all) of the impressionist painters that painted the poor struggling peasants, were usually from well off families, families that could afford art lessons or the connections to set up an apprenticeship. Sure, but those painters weren’t advocating policies that would keep those poor struggling peasants poor and struggling, for the sake of a romantic ideal. > [@Robert163](#): > > 2- does this make Marx’s comments less valid? What makes them less valid is that people left the farm and the cottage workshop for the factory and the city of their own free will, because it made their life better. Marx omits that part. Industrialization helped the bourgeoisie, therefore it is bad. That’s the sort of thinking Marx gives you. That Marx had no experience with the lifestyle he was bemoaning the end of explains why he felt the way that he did, it doesn’t itself mean he was wrong. Oh, and I forgot one of the relevant passages: > [@](#): > > The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. Some people insist Marx was a rationalist, but I’m of the school that classifies him as a romantic, and passages like that are part of the case for romanticism. > [@Robert163](#): > > I’m reading the communist Manifesto right now, and those passages kind of resonated with me. Why? Do you think peasant agriculture or village cottage industry is purer or spiritually better than industry, or that it’s better for the laborers, or what? > [@Robert163](#): > > 3- Thanks for your responses 🙂 No problem. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/53 "2014-03-16T14:00:17Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > What makes them less valid is that people left the farm and the cottage workshop for the factory and the city of their own free will, because it made their life better. Marx omits that part. Industrialization helped the bourgeoisie, therefore it is bad. That’s the sort of thinking Marx gives you. > > That Marx had no experience with the lifestyle he was bemoaning the end of explains why he felt the way that he did, it doesn’t itself mean he was wrong. > … > Some people insist Marx was a rationalist, but I’m of the school that classifies him as a romantic, and passages like that are part of the case for romanticism. > … > Why? Do you think peasant agriculture or village cottage industry is purer or spiritually better than industry, or that it’s better for the laborers, or what? You’re clearly _wildly_ misreading him. Marx is a critic of capitalism, but he absolutely recognizes that it is better than what came before it. He talks about industrial capitalism as alienating to workers in a philosophical sense, but the idea that capitalism is a materially superior form of social organization to the earlier cottage industries and subsistence agriculture is a central idea to Marxist thought. He does briefly touch on “primitive communism” which is practised by hunter-gatherers, but he’s not looking at them in a nostalgic way-- he’s very clear that a communist society will be something novel. Marx is looking forward, not backwards, and seeing him as some sort of romantic waxing nostalgic is extremely wrong. Now, many other communist movements, even self-professed Marxists, have been backwards-looking and have invented romantic back-stories about earlier idealized societies they’re trying to emulate. The Khmer Rouge is a good example. But despite their claims, there’s no actual basis for it in Marx’s writing. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/54 "2014-03-16T15:14:45Z")
> [@Frank\_Merton](#): > > I have long wondered exactly why Communism in Russia collapsed. I think it was because Stalin made things so bad and was so arbitrary, and later the leaders because of Stalin had no zeal for the ideology and just held to the reigns of power like one holds the tail of a tiger. Another popular expression was, “To get along, go along.” By the end of the 1960s the Soviet Union was fully industrialized- that is, everything that could be done by fiat, by simply commanding it be built had been: the railroads, steel mills, cement factories, etc. The Soviet Union was now fully “capitalized”, no pun intended. At that point there was nothing left to do but try to keep pace with modernization and run the economy as well as possible- and at that the Soviet Union miserably failed. By some calculations, when you factor out just two things- sales of alcoholic beverages, and the inflation of the value of the petroleum produced in the USSR- then there was NO economic growth after 1970! Meanwhile the West was entering the new information economy made possible by personal computers, which the centrally controlled Soviet economy couldn’t possibly allow or emulate. The Soviet Union had always been inefficient, but its leaders had always told themselves that “someday” it would be better; that was no longer possible by 1980. The desperate search for _some_ way to improve the Soviet economy led to Gorbachev’s “perestroika” movement, and once any glimmer of self-doubt was allowed, the system came crashing down. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/55 "2014-03-17T00:51:12Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > You’re clearly _wildly_ misreading him. Marx is a critic of capitalism, but he absolutely recognizes that it is better than what came before it. He talks about industrial capitalism as alienating to workers in a philosophical sense, but the idea that capitalism is a materially superior form of social organization to the earlier cottage industries and subsistence agriculture is a central idea to Marxist thought. He does briefly touch on “primitive communism” which is practised by hunter-gatherers, but he’s not looking at them in a nostalgic way-- he’s very clear that a communist society will be something novel. Marx is looking forward, not backwards, and seeing him as some sort of romantic waxing nostalgic is extremely wrong. > > Now, many other communist movements, even self-professed Marxists, have been backwards-looking and have invented romantic back-stories about earlier idealized societies they’re trying to emulate. The Khmer Rouge is a good example. But despite their claims, there’s no actual basis for it in Marx’s writing. ‘Materially superior, but spiritually (or philosophically, or whatever you want to call it) inferior’ was the position I was attributing to Marx. He didn’t think cottage labor could outproduce industry, plainly. His romanticism in this regard isn’t near as profound as the Khmer Rouge’s, certainly, but it exists. ---
**Author:** ![Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steely_Dan_Fan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/56 "2014-03-17T03:00:28Z")
> [@Frank\_Merton](#): > > The collapse of Communism in Russia did not happen during the brutal times but during liberalization. There was never a collapse of communism, because there was no communism in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steely_Dan_Fan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/57 "2014-03-17T03:08:23Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Sure, but those painters weren’t advocating policies that would keep those poor struggling peasants poor and struggling, for the sake of a romantic ideal. Neither was Marx. > [@](#): > > What makes them less valid is that people left the farm and the cottage workshop for the factory and the city of their own free will, because it made their life better. Marx omits that part. Marx didn’t omit it, he just offered an explanation for that phenomenon other than the romanticized and reality-free one you’re putting forth. > [@](#): > > Industrialization helped the bourgeoisie, therefore it is bad. If you actually bothered to know what you’re talking about, you’d find that in most of his major works, Marx isn’t actually interested in normative statements. “Bad” is a meaningless concept in this context, because he was interested in explaining, not making value judgments. > [@](#): > > Some people insist Marx was a rationalist, but I’m of the school that classifies him as a romantic, Then you’re part of the school that willfully and eagerly alternates between not knowing what they’re talking about and distorting evidence beyond all sanity… > [@](#): > > and passages like that are part of the case for romanticism. …because the passage you quote is from a work written in an entirely different genre, with an entirely different style, and for an entirely different purpose, from the academic work that makes up the overwhelming bulk of his written output and upon which an intellectually honest assessment of his economic and sociological thinking must be based. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/58 "2014-03-17T03:27:22Z")
I think we can safely assume Marx was in any event rather and significantly fulla crap. ---
**Author:** ![Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steely_Dan_Fan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/59 "2014-03-17T03:32:42Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I think we can safely assume Marx was in any event rather and significantly fulla crap. If you’re fine with being completely divorced from reality, sure. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737/60 "2014-03-17T03:45:28Z")
Heck, the reality is the horrors of his ideas put into practice. Afterthought: sorry, his ideas instantly abandoned and corrupted the moment anyone _tried_ to put them into practice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-business-in-a-marxist-economy/683737.md?page=4)