[WalterBright]

I enjoyed reading Toliken's fantasy LODR very much, but my attempts at reading Marx's fantasies felt like hammering a nail into my skull.

The attempts at implementing Marxism all ended in misery and famine. What more would anyone need to know about it?

BTW, a capitalist investing money also entails risk. How it works is the more risk, the more potential reward. Does Marx account for risk? I ask that because the Marxists I hear never mention the essential role risk plays, they usually just assume there is no risk.

[Apocryphon]

I haven’t read Marx, nor do I particularly care to, but this seems like an endorsement for intellectual incuriosity.

[WalterBright]

There are so many interesting things to learn that are reality (like reading history books), why waste the precious remaining few years of my life reading books promoting nonsense?

I read historical accounts about the Kennedy assassination, but don't waste my time on the conspiracy theory books. Nor do I bother with treatises on ancient aliens or UFOs. Or books on astrology, kirlian photography, ESP, flat earth, religions dogma, etc.

If Marxism worked, I'd be more interested in it. But it doesn't, so why bother?

[Apocryphon]

If you’ve spent your entire life building an identity around opposing something, the least you can do is try to understand it.

[WalterBright]

I understand it well enough by reading history books on what happened in them. Have you ventured out of academic theories and read any histories of Marxist attempts?

Why should I waste time on a theory that has been proven false every time it was tried?

It's up to you to justify it, not me.

[Apocryphon]

I'm not a Marxist so I have no interest in justifying their theories. However, if I made my personal brand all about being what a staunch anti-Marxist I am, I would hazard an effort to try to understand their position, if for nothing else but to understand why so many others have bought into it, and to be a more effective opponent against it.

[WalterBright]

Marxism is just one of many utopian schemes that do not work. I do not need to study every perpetual motion machine design to dismiss them. It's their job to show that they work.

What amazes me is the people who desperately cling to Marxism despite its 100% failure rate. How can they make a career studying it and never notice its history?

Do you notice that nobody has been able to point to a Marxist success story, after what, 150 years of trying?

BTW, the fundamental flaw of Marxism is it fails to understand basic human nature - that people are selfish. You are selfish, I am selfish, everybody is. Marxism requires rejection of selfishness. This will never work. You cannot cajole it out of people, educate it out, indoctrinate it out, or shoot it out of them. They'll still act selfishly.

Free markets work because it creates a framework where selfishness benefits others.