Hello, Im a boy from Mexico

[bambam]

Hello from México!

I know, I know! All you know from Mexico (from your favourite local news channel and media) is that it is a hellhole, backwarded, rubbish country, ruled by corrupt politicians engaged in drug dealing. A failed country that has no law, no future and no present. So the best thing you can do is a)Never go to Mexico; b)If you are there, what are you waiting for to get out and fly to the USA?

Ok, ok

I think no government on Earth is corruption free. Well, maybe Switzerland and Scandinavian countries are corrupt free.

Well, I lived and studied in the USA for a graduate degree

Though there are good things in the USA, it is the social environment that I never liked at all!

I don't even want to get into the dating scene.

Just consider that the USA is paying a hefty, unbearable and inhuman price for being the almighty all powerful, wealthy country it is.

The USA is number one. Yes it is! And I bet Americans are so proud of being number one. But they don't realize they are paying high for being number one.

And lets face it, the US is respected basically for one simple thing: they have total, overwhelming military superiority, period. That's it.

They can do as they wish home and abroad because, alas, they have the hydrogen bomb plus highly advanced weaponry no one else could dream of having. Not even Russia.

So, whats the point?

I would ask any american if he/she wishes to pay emotionally and spiritually high just for being number one, it is, military and economic and technological total superiority... Or... live a life of ease, warm weather, warm people, friendly people, reasonable friendly dating scene....

See, no country is paradise and Mexico is far from it

Im a poor backwarded boy living in Mexico with and advanced degree from an American University that decided to stay at home even if material poverty is my destiny. Because, alas, my pocket is poor, but my soul, friends, I try to enrich it everyday and people around me enriches me...

[abcdavid01]

Living in America I think I can understand your mindset.

[fschmidt]

America used to be a nice country. Some older Americans remember, like Fred.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/fred-columns.shtml

Mexico also used to be a nicer country. Just ask your grandparents.

The world is going to hell.

[bambam]

Hey, thanks for your answers!
I visited that link, very interesting that guy Fred, he writes in a very nice way and he speaks the truth, I praise him.

Yes, of course, Mexico used to be a better country and my parents and grandparents agree with that.

I agree, the whole world is going to hell

I feel sorry for the American people because I know most of them are suffering a lot.

See, this is an international trend. I can feel some social isolation and alienation in Mexico, specially in big urban cities over here. Not that much as in the USA but you can notice it.

I have traveled through Europe and the richer the country, the more isolation there is, loneliness and alienation. Italy feels very different than Germany.

That said, I remember once in Frankfurt me and my friends met some nice friendly German people over there.

However, Im afraid that money, wealth and power comes with a premium price: your soul, isolation, loneliness, alienation, extreme focus in things and an overall market economy of your social relationships.

I wonder why we don't realize this.

America has it all to be happy. There is wealth, there is technology, there is health, there is industry... Why not put all that working for the happiness and wellbeing of American people? Instead of all that working to have a few families becoming ultra-rich.

When catastrophe arises, Americans will say "why we didn't do this and that?" Its gonna be too late.

[Ghost]

.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Welcome to the board, Bambam. It sounds like you have a peace about you, and staying out America, that's easier to do. The American economy needs people to be stupid, corrupt, wasteful, and unhealthy in order to prosper. That may just be the conception of economy at all though.

I definitely want to go to Mexico one day.

....just don't bang Juarez. LLS!! LMAO!!

[gsjackson]

"...an overall market economy of your social relationships." Great turn of phrase. Is this similar to Marx's "commodification?"

[bambam]

[fschmidt]

America has it all to be happy. There is wealth, there is technology, there is health, there is industry... Why not put all that working for the happiness and wellbeing of American people? Instead of all that working to have a few families becoming ultra-rich.

Corruption. Same as in Mexico.

I think you are right. As far as I remember, I believe Marx's "commodification" was about how under capitalism everything becomes commodified, even human beings and their relationships.

Another great thinker was Gergy Lukacs who used the word "reification". I guess Lukacs went even farther than Marx himself did.

Lukacs used "reification" to describe two deeply interrelated phenomena ocurring simultaneously: How under advanced capitalism things became alive, it is, things and stuff started to have life and related to us and to each other as if they were living things. At the same time, humans, people and living entites started to be regarded as objects, it is, as things.

Blaming capitalism for various ills has been popular among the Mexican upper classes for a long time. It is also completely wrong. I suggest reading The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to put things in historical perspective.

The world is going to hell because of declining morality caused by the disintegration of religion. The changes in the Catholic Church in Mexico over the last 40 years provides an excellent example of this.

[bambam]

Well I already read Max Weber's book and it is great book and his insight is original and well documented.

I consider it a complement to Marx thories about the rise of capitalism

There has been much debate about Marx-Weber conception of the rise of capitalism.

I don't think blaming capitalism is wrong at all, but Im aware that capitalism is just human creation. Can we talk better of blaming the philosophical and religious grounds on which capitalism is founded.

And I agree that disintegration of morality, the lack of values and corruption inside churches elsewhere are taking all of us to hell. There are no values left to guide the common man on the streets

[fschmidt]

Well I already read Max Weber's book and it is great book and his insight is original and well documented.

I consider it a complement to Marx thories about the rise of capitalism

It's great to have someone well-read here. All I have read of Marx is The Communist Manifesto and that was a long time ago. So maybe you could summarize Marx's theory about the rise of capitalism.

I don't think blaming capitalism is wrong at all, but Im aware that capitalism is just human creation. Can we talk better of blaming the philosophical and religious grounds on which capitalism is founded.

Yes, please do. Please explain this.

And I agree that disintegration of morality, the lack of values and corruption inside churches elsewhere are taking all of us to hell. There are no values left to guide the common man on the streets

So what is the solution?

[bambam]

Well thanks for considering Im well-read but to be honest you are asking me for too much if you think I can summarize Marx's Theory of Capitalism. I guess Im not the best person to engage in such a task.

I would say the Communist Manifesto is like not the best place to start with Marx. Everything Marx wrote is so difficult to go through that one feels one needs ffirst to go through other philosophers before getting to him.

I consider his Philosophical and Economical Manuscripts as the best place to start with him.

I will try but I will likely fail as Im not a philosopher, I have only read a few works from him (his entire work is so huge to say the least) and about him and about his work. So Im not a scholar and I have gone through in a disordered, undisciplined and eclectic way.

Perhaps Marx says that economic conditions actually conditions people's thinking. Hegel said that it is the conscience which determines being. Which translates into you are born with a peasants mentality hence you will be a peasant. You are born nnoble or rich because yoou are the best fit to be noble and rich. This is so called idealistic philosophy.

Marx said the contrary, you are born in a peasant’s family you learn peasant mentality you become a full-fledged peasant when you are grown up. This is materialism, contrary to Hegel’s idealism. But this has been criticized as to be a deterministic approach and history shows how many peasants end up being rich landowners and despots.

If only critics would read that Marx’s materialism was a dialectic one, not a vulgar deterministic materialism. Which means that, according to Marx, man is such a being capable of modifying his conditions. And once such conditions are modified by man, this new conditions thus newly created will influence man back. And such has been the history of man. Then historic materialism.

Hence, Marx’s materialism breaches into dialectic materialism and historic materialism which are both deeply intertwined.

He saw capitalism as an unavoidable outcome of the processes of production of goods and services at a point in history.

Then most of his critics come again to say Marx main failure is to try to explain everything based on economy and production forces.

What their critics fail to see is that before Marx wrote “Das Capitalâ€￾, he wrote extensively about history, philosophy and some sociology. Then his economical approach is somehow a result of his non-economic studies and research.

Specially, religious leaders harshly criticize Marx because they consider Marx never paid attention to man’s soul, but only to man’s needs of food, clothes, home, health and technology. Again, criticizing Marx as only worried about economy and production forces.

Accusing Marx of this is to regard Marx as a vulgar materialist.

One should read Marx early Philosophical and Economical manuscripts to see how much he cared about man’s emotional and spiritual and psychological needs.

I may be mistaking many things here and I may be incurring in so many imprecisions and lack of rigor overall. But consider Marx work is so vast and so difficult to go through that will take me years to fully understand it.

Above said in part takes on the issue of philosophical grounds of capitalism. In feudal times, the general “ideologyâ€￾ (if we can talk of ideology on those long gone times) is that God sent us some special men and women (kings, queens, emperors, warrior leaders etc) to rule us and protect us and bring Gods will unto Earth.

So we most humbly take our place on Earth, shut up and obey. This is the idea that if you are born king is because you are the best fit to be a king, it is, to rule others. If you are born peasant is because your essence was to be peasant. Idealism.

After feudalism, bourgeois thinking came, telling us that there is no determination and all men are equal, no kings, no serfs. Just people that, if they work hard, they will be the chosen ones. How I know Im chosen? If you amass wealth and you are a self-made man you will prove you are God’s chosen. This is roughly what Weber explains in his book.

Marx analysis of bourgeois thinking does not directly contradict Weber’s one. It only tells a different aspect of it. That of appropriation of the means of production to amass wealth. In this way, if you become rich is because you were born with a rich man’s mentality and essence. But a poor man has no excuse because no king and no law is impending him from becoming rich. He is a failure because he allows himself to be a failure. Again, idealism.

Marx approach was not idealism, it was materialist but a dialectic and a historical one.

As for a solution.

The only solution I can think of is to make a revolution inside ourselves.

Dalai Lama said that there will be peace in the world only when peace reigns in the heart of all men.

My only idea of a solution is to be a peaceful person inside of me, to find contentment with what I have and with what I am. It means growing inside.

I would venture that if people would be content growing inside they will stop exploiting other people because they will have no time to exploit others. They will consider their inner growing much more important than the growing of their bank account. Hence, some peace will come to earth.

Once there is peace, love can grow.

Because he who has no time for himself can not have time for others. And he who has no time for others can’t be a loving person.

As long as we focus on things we lack time for ourselves

That said there is nothing wrong with owning a home, a car or a few normal luxuries, as long as they are not gotten by exploiting others and as long you do not dedicate most of your time to acquire them

I find this approach similar or in line to what many great people have said, such as Jesus or Budha

I would say that would be a solution.

[fschmidt]

From what you described, Marx sounds like the Jewish view while Hegel sounds like the Christian view. Nothing very original here.

Your view sounds like the Buddhist view. I personally reject the Buddhist view. My view is tribal like in the Old Testament. My view is that the function of morality is to strengthen a tribe and the function of religion is to provide morality. For an individual to have morality outside of a tribe is actually harmful to the individual. He will just be a loser, a victim of others.

Jesus was Jewish and therefore tribal. Imagine if Jesus was born in Mexico and acted as he did in Israel. Mexicans would consider him a sucker and a loser. He would just be taken advantage of and ridiculed. (In America, he would just be ignored.) Someone like Jesus can only really exist in a tribal context.

[bambam]

Welcome to the board, Bambam. It sounds like you have a peace about you, and staying out America, that's easier to do. The American economy needs people to be stupid, corrupt, wasteful, and unhealthy in order to prosper. That may just be the conception of economy at all though.

I definitely want to go to Mexico one day.

Hello!

Thanks a lot!

Yeah, maybe thats the whole conception of economy, it is not that it is not working, maybe it is that it is working as afew people expected for their own particular good!

You are welcome anytime you want to come here to Mexico!