Chris Whalen: Roubini Is WRONG About Karl Marx Being Right

Marx was describing a historic shift that had been occurring for a while, from mercantilist economies to those financed by private industry. His analysis is very deep and misunderstood (purposely, I might add) by bourgeois capitalist economists. That is because he is talking about a socio-economic system not just economics. His analysis is mostly accurate and we an see it today in the increasing finance capitalism he predicted along with the monopolization of capital, increasing wealth in a smaller percentage of the population, and the perversity of a system which needs consumers to perpetuate itself. The need to CREATE consumers to consume stuff perverts society since, instead of the means serving an end (i.e. the fulfillment of essential needs), capitalism reverses this mechanism (or dialectical process) and the capitalist model becomes an end in itself. In other words, instead of being used to free humans from need, it corrupts humans by making them mere consumers, manipulating consciousness so that humans become entrapped in behavior patterns designed to maximize the profits of the rich, the capitalists, the corporations. Hence, humans become consumers with all the traits of the perfect consumers: impetuousness, irresponsibility, indiscipline....in other words poor work habits, #$%$ reasoning capabilities, and hedonistic narcissist. This analysis explains why we are where we are in America quite well. In other words, the capitalist model requires consumers whose work habits are such that corporations can not hire them anymore and must seek new immigrants who have not been perverted by the system (it takes two to four generations to successful socialize people into this degenerate mindset, approximately). That is why immigration is essential to America. It also explains why the educational system is so bad in that educational institutions have to accept as students those who have suffered under the need for a system to produce consumers rather than a more competent, more reasonable, disciplined, and responsible work force. Few understand Marx because they do not understand his philosophical underpinnings. He was as much a sociologist as economist.People like this guy are totally ignorant. Capitalism will fail and is failing. The Crash is coming. This stuff is complicated and hard to condense into a few paragraphs. Anyone reading this would do well to really look into and try to understand dialectical materialism which is not really understood and its classic description in history books is just flat out wrong. Check out Erich Fromm for a better understanding. He wrote Escape from Freedom for example.

firstly, i believe Hobbes was the first to label all economic activity as based on greed. secondly, the problem with applying "models" and economic theory is that, in the end, these are political issues that are not solved by applying any formula. if a system is corrupt, it is wholly indifferent to the theories and numbers one might apply, regardless of the sophistication, because you have unaccounted for variables. again ( if it ain't plain enough), these are basically moral and subjective issues. yet, it is certainly true that the labels we use to categorize the processes are flawed and based on historical systems that don't exist in any shape or form today. (see: n. korea/ communist state.)

The chickens are finally coming home to roost for free floating fiat currencies. They've never worked and never will.

I have S S and medicare,enough to spend out of my life left,no talk is cheap,no greed to stimulate.I am very sure and certain this is on account of U S free market system and past 50 years of American Capitalism. Why do people denies the 'exist' of capitalism in US and disparage the word 'capitalism'?

The rich and the upper middle class are fleeing because the government has painted a tax target on their backs. Don't believe me? escapefromamerica.com

To try and stop them, the government has passed laws taxing Americans for 10 years after they leave the country. Ron Paul briefly touched on it in the Florida debate.

Legislation is being introduced to stop you from leaving if your taxes aren't in order.

Joe Stalin would kill everyone to free up job openings and nationalize everything. Marx's pills led to that abomination. Show me a democratic republic 'free' market kill zone like that. To be fair, the US seems to be going in that direction these days...oh so slowly and deliberately.

Rocky wrote "The rich and the upper middle class are fleeing because the government has painted a tax target on their backs."

Let the rich flee, tax their US income at 39% - not 15%, and tax their US assets heavily with a new wealth tax. The wealth tax is needed anyway to reverse the economically destructive accumulation of wealth that began with the Clinton capital gains tax cuts in 1997 - made infinitely worse by the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 - with approximately zero net jobs created in all that time! or at least since 2001. And each of those tax cuts for the wealthy led to asset and credit bubbles that burst with devastating consequences.

Whalen knows risk. He does not have a good grip on philosophy. Any time you hear the term "socialism" you can be sure the speaker is talking slogans.

"If you're any sort of libertarian. If you believe in American principles of democracy..."

If you're any sort of libertarian, you pretty much don't believe in any government, democracy included.

If you want to know what unhindered capitalism produces, the US went through multi-year Depressions in 1873 and 1893 - and the government had little or nothing to do with it.

Both depressions were precipitated by railroad failures - not anything the government did as there were very few government regulations and practically no government involvement in the economy - and the US was on the gold standard - and we suffered crippling deflation without any government assistance.

Later, without government intervention, unhindered capitalists used massive child labor until the early 20th century and caused extreme damage from strip mining after that - among other disgusting developments. Conservatives dream of an economy with as few regulations and as little government involvement as back then.

marx was right for the wrong reasons.these assholes do not get it. it's underconsumption that is destroying the party and the republicans don't get it. when we get to the bottom and the people want to kill them we'll see for sure that the people understood. letting the so-called market work only brings us closer to the edge.it's the debt stupid. this guy roubini is never right.the economy is broken and re- liquidifying the culprits will not work this time.kill them all and start over.

RePosteD and Just In: Now DS, You should know better primarily because use of the word ‘capitalism’ was developed by cavemen. It's called a club! Thumbs down again and I didn't get your point! Thanks anyway...

RePosteD and Just In: "With me I must confess but not quite as eloquently as you that without friends you certainly have no marbles at all. I endure your talent quite well, wanna play? Thanks! Big thumbs up to you! Winner!" NEXT! ...smiles...!

Who in the world pays any attention to Houdini. He was right one time and people think he is a saint.

Whalen isn't doing much but spouting opinions. Marx is wrong because he is unAmerican? Was Jefferson wrong for betraying the Crown? Argue facts, not labels. Marx came out of a revulsion of how people got treated at the dawn of the industrial revolution in England. The West met that crisis by fostering unions and passing laws, not discarding representative democracy. Marx did not predict well, but he did diagnose well. The fact that totalitarian regimes use him for ideological cover? He is not to blame. Read him some time if you dare.

Without government intervention, unrestricted capitalism would mean that nearly all manufacturing in the world would be done by third world children for 25 cents per hour.

American children would be doing most of the unskilled work in the US for $1 per hour.

Proof: early 20th Century America and Nike shoes

And the Wall Street bankers who gambled wrong on mortgages and caused the financial crisis - they did it out of greed - not because they might be bailed out. While they were raking in their millions, they cared about those millions, not about bailouts or the future of their companies or the country.

Read some of Will Rogers comments about government and economy written some 75-85 years ago; not much has changed .

You are right about roubini being wrong about karl marx being right. Full Marx to you

Capitalism, or whatever we want to call it (individual freedom), has been working fine for more than two hundred years in this country. People and companies are able to develop new products that society wants, improve processes to make us more efficient, and make our lives better. The major hiccups occur when the federal government decides to intervene beyond what is allowed by the Constitution and beyond what is needed (“for the greater good” - as defined by the federal government). The problems of today are not because “corporations are bad” or “workers are not competitive”. The problems are being caused by the massive overextension of the federal government’s intrusion into all aspects of our lives. And this is partly caused by the massive influence of money from both the left and right that bribes elite politicians to do their bidding. There are many changes needed to fix these problems and now is probably the right time to start working on them. My first suggestion is to eliminate the elite (ruling class) politicians and return to a citizen government as was originally conceived by our Founding Fathers. Let’s pass a Constitutional Amendment to limit the Congress, Senate, and President to one term in office. Re-election bribes become less influential and, hopefully, the one-term representatives will use their term to pass legislation for the good of the country, not the good of their re-election.

Free enterprise is not free. With money determining votes in Congress, job creation has stopped because innovation has been choked. Large corporate interests are getting their money's worth (lobbying the government). Businesses, now allowed to buying up the competition, mean fewer jobs, higher prices, and less innovation. Capitalism that is for the very few is not really worth fighting to protect. We are slipping back into a robber baron era and wonder why good jobs are disappearing. On the global front, even our free trade agreements end up being more profits for a few large US/international corporations and free access to our markets v. loss of jobs for the average US worker.The free market has not been in place for decades and we are seeing the result. We open our market to Korea and cannot sell anything to them due to trade barriers. We have let the wealth of the west go to the east in the name of an ever cheaper toaster. Until we trade freely and really force free trade agreements, we will continue to sink. Until we also encourage competition amongst our own large corporations, jobs will continue to dwindle. Our model for the past decade seems to be Mexico (money is rushing to the top while over 45 million Americans live in poverty). We encourage our companies to expand out of the country and also allow larger companies to eliminate competition by buying up the small ones. Then, we wonder where all the jobs have gone.