What if a Democratic candidate for VP cited Karl Marx as a huge influence?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Smith has brought the world greater prosperity and peace; Marx has brought the world greater oppression and war.

rofl, joke poster

You'll understand when you grow up.

You have a colossal man-crush on one of the Worst People in America (TM). You really shouldn't talk, breh.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well, I've thought it out, and I will concede that voiced and voiceless phonemes are also an example of 'polar opposites'. Add phonotactics to grammar and math. Also particle physics.

It's still not a social science.

[The Mikado]

Well, I've thought it out, and I will concede that voiced and voiceless phonemes are also an example of 'polar opposites'. Add phonotactics to grammar and math. Also particle physics.

It's still not a social science.

But didn't Hegel tell us that thought moves through a cycle of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, where the synthesis takes elements of each of the preceding notions, in something akin to the following manner?  And did not Karl Marx dictate that, in addition to ideas, entire social and economic classes can and do operate in the same fashion, and that that is the base of history?

Thesis: Obnoxious Obama Hacks
Antithesis: Obnoxious Romney Hacks
Synthesis: 2012 Board

Simple dialectical materialism, the science of history.

[LastVoter]

Smith has brought the world greater prosperity and peace; Marx has brought the world greater oppression and war.

rofl, joke poster

Yea, I'd like for Politico to explain how does oppression by imperialism that comes with (neoliberal) capitalism(also fascism, but the two ideas collude when you have someone like Ryan) brings prosperity and peace.

[Politico]

Smith has brought the world greater prosperity and peace; Marx has brought the world greater oppression and war.

rofl, joke poster

Yea, I'd like for Politico to explain how does oppression by imperialism that comes with (neoliberal) capitalism(also fascism, but the two ideas collude when you have someone like Ryan) brings prosperity and peace.

I'll do exactly that after you tell us where the computer, desk, chair and clothes you are using were manufactured. Then I want you to do some research on the lives of people in those countries. Specifically, I want you to compare their standard of living today versus 50 years ago. Then I want you to explain how things were more peaceful in the 1910s and 1940s compared to right now. Finally, I want you to compare life in America today versus in 1776.

Then you can explain to us how horrible free enterprise is while you suck down your latte.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well, I've thought it out, and I will concede that voiced and voiceless phonemes are also an example of 'polar opposites'. Add phonotactics to grammar and math. Also particle physics.

It's still not a social science.

But didn't Hegel tell us that thought moves through a cycle of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, where the synthesis takes elements of each of the preceding notions, in something akin to the following manner?  And did not Karl Marx dictate that, in addition to ideas, entire social and economic classes can and do operate in the same fashion, and that that is the base of history?

Thesis: Obnoxious Obama Hacks
Antithesis: Obnoxious Romney Hacks
Synthesis: 2012 Board

Simple dialectical materialism, the science of history.

I like using the dialectic a lot in certain circumstances, such as in some although not all of my academic work, but I think that it's a huge mistake to confuse 'antithesis' in the dialectical sense with some sort of ontological 'polar opposite', mainly because I think that one of Hegel's (and, by extension, Marx's) blind spots is a failure to recognize that a thesis can have more than one antithesis and hence more than one synthesis can develop. An antithesis is that which contradicts and/or negates a thesis; it does not have to be an opposite. Obnoxious Johnson, Stein, and Goode Hacks could, conceivably, be antitheses to Obnoxious Obama Hacks, for example.

[Gustaf]

Seatown and Lief, does it make you angry that Politico is actually making you look like clueless idiots? Because that just happened.

Citing Marx as an influence is a vague concept. If you do it as a historian or something it shouldn't be that controversial. If you do it in economics you're basically trolling. With Rand the latter sort of applies in all fields though.