Believe it or not: Karl Marx is making a comeback

[Warpy]

51. Don't forget that those of us over 40 saw what the perversion of Marxixm

that Lenin decreed (all power to the party that ruled in the name of the proletariat) turned into in eastern Europe. There was just a change of guard, especially in Russia, wherein the Party stepped into the shoes of the aristocracy and ruled accordingly.

That isn't to say progress stopped, it didn't, especially under Stalin. However the price in human lives over and above what the world wars had cost was staggering.

The reason it wasn't the Utopian ideal of the working class governing itself was simple: the Party wonks just didn't trust the people and often with very good reason.

An educated and informed population is quite capable of governing itself. We're starting to go down the road of poor education and propaganda and infotainment instead of information. Whether they call themselves Communists or Natural Leaders Born to Wealth, the oligarchy remains much the same as it always was.

One wonders what Marx's ideal might have looked like, the power residing with the people who worked for a living while the bourgeois (we'd call them big money these days) sat out elections and were just carried along with the flow. Chances are that money would continue to find loopholes to exploit and pollute just about every system. It has certainly started to destroy ours.