From: Konnen-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: RE: M-INTRO: "Spirit of Marxism"
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:24:55 -0700


hey neolib,
you missed last night's class, one of the better classes of the semester, 
Hans pretty much refuted that whole article last night. He explained why 
marx said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." Hopefully i can 
paraphrase what he said correctly. Marx was not trying to say that people 
get high or disillusioned from religion but they use it as a way to reduce 
pain, they see that morality is lacking from the scientific explanation of 
life and they must make up for the lack of morality in society by going to 
church, only when social relations become clearer will they theoretically no 
longer need religion. Capitalism depends upon social relations not being 
seen(transparent) by the workers, such as the length of the paid and the 
portion of the unpaid working day, A--->B-->C. Hans' remark was that if the 
bell rang at 11:00 to say ok now the unpaid portion of the working day 
starts you would need to lock the workers in to get them to stay.
Going back to the article you posted, Hans also said that the Soviet Union 
was the perfect example of why marxism has a negative image. He argued that 
there were many, many flaws that prohibited the system from working 
correclty. Corruption in the ruling class and the presence of the United 
States in the arms race were two major problems that the system could not 
overcome. I'd like to keep going but i have to get back to the LSAT 
studying, happy holidays all.
Konnen

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