# Was Marx right?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 27, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529 "2010-12-27T17:12:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 62

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**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/62 "2010-12-29T00:21:46Z")

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Credit where credit is due, this perfectly fits, and I’m quoting it:

> [@N. and S. Korea firing artillery at each other](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/n-and-s-korea-firing-artillery-at-each-other/563483/240):
>
> I am reminded of an old joke about a young man who, in the spirit of going along to get along, tried to absorb the State’s lessons about Marxist philosophy but simply couldn’t make any sense of them. In desperation, he resorted to discreetly consulting his rabbi.
> 
> The rabbi thought for a moment, and finally said, “I shall illustrate by a parable. Two men climb down a chimney. When they reach the bottom, one is dirty but the other somehow comes out clean. Which one washes himself?”
> 
> “The dirty one, of course!”
> 
> The rabbi shook his head. “No. Each of them sees the other, and so the clean one believes that he is dirty and the dirty one believes that he is clean, so the clean one goes to wash himself. Now, two men climb down a chimney. When they reach the bottom, one is dirty but the other somehow comes out clean. Which one washes himself?”
> 
> “You already asked that question! Well, now that you’ve explained it, it would be the clean one.”
> 
> The rabbi shook his head again. “No. Each of them looks at his own hands, and so the clean one knows that he is clean, and the dirty one knows that he is dirty and goes to wash himself. Now, two men climb down a chimney…”
> 
> “Stop! You’re just making things up so it will come out the way you want!”
> 
> The rabbi smiled. “A-ha! **Now** you understand Marxist philosophy!”

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> I love how you switch from ‘class struggle’ to ‘class warfare’ in the middle of your post. You’s a sneaky one, you is.

Shrugs.  
Hard to keep nonsense terms straight sometimes I suppose.  
But at least it’s not quite as bad as redefining “progress and social change” to “a radical restructuring of the socioeconomic and political structure of society”.

Nor is it quite as bad as redefining “class struggle/warfare/monkeyshines” into conflict between any two groups when they’re not totally equal. Unless they’re someone the Romans and Carthage, and then it just doesn’t count at all.

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> They only seem to be moving because you’re running some crazy-ass patterns down the field.

No, they’re moving because you’re moving them. “Class Monkeyshines” can be actual conflict between classes, or any sort of conflict involving people who aren’t clones, and “progress” and “social change” can be actual progress like coming up with antibiotics to cure disease or social change like changes in society, or it can be “a radical restructuring of the socioeconomic and political structure of society”.

But they’re still the sole thing that causes progress or social change, whatever those are exactly.

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> Class struggle does not automatically involve the lowest classes in society

So any sort of struggle becomes a “class” struggle, even if it has nothing to do with economics or class. A garbage man argues with a CEO over who saw a parking space first? Class Monkeyshines!

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> Two classes out of several fighting for power - class struggle.

Again goalposts move and definitions get rewritten on the fly. Certain men are a class unto themselves, well, because they are. And women and slaves don’t get counted in that class because, if they did, then it wouldn’t be an example of Class Monkeyshines, which it is, after all.

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> The monarchy had the power, the bourgeoisie was strong enough and organized enough to make a bid for power - class against class. Class struggle.

One group of people had power, they fought with other people who had more power that they were exercising over the first group, therefore it’s Class Monkeyshines. And now, conveniently, we’re back to some sort of standard “class” concept at least, rather than 'lower class folks, but not women or slaves, because they don’t count."

Of course, people would be hard pressed to find any conflict, at any point in history, where there wasn’t some sort of disparity between participants.

> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> _Any_ struggle in which an oppressed section of the world’s population fights for its rights needs to involve ever wider sections of the working class, and thus such fights become part of the class struggle.

Ah, what luck. Now we’ll define the world in terms of only two classes, and if some people want to change anything in society and work in groups, then it’s Class Monkeyshines.

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