'I'm a Marxist' says Dalai Lama, but agrees capitalism has helped China

AFP ^ | May 20, 2010

[Free ThinkerNY]

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him.

"Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures.

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

However, he credited China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to "represent all sorts of classes".

"(Capitalism) brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards improved," he said.

[Oceander]

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits,"

That statement is so utterly wrong, it's not even funny. And the fact that the Dalai Lama would say it indicates that he's nothing more than just another clay-foot sod, just like the rest of us, and not some incarnation of a divinity.

Let's start with the historical, shall we? There's a little website I like to visit when questions like this come up that has a pretty decent evaluation of the sources and statistics for human megadeaths: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm

According to this website, the "big four" are WWI, WWII (no surprises there), China and Russia. The last two, of course, have one big aspect in common - they've both been run by Marxists.

Based on the statistics surveyed by the author of this site, focusing only on the ideological/political battles involved, and excluding deaths due to the world wars, and rounding to the hundred thousands, Marxists and Marxism have been responsible for approximately 71,500,000 deaths in the Twentieth Century. That's correct, folks, seventy-one million, five hundred-thousand deaths can be laid at the feet of Marxists and Marxism, and what's more, those deaths can be attributed, in whole or in part, precisely to the political ideologies of Marxism.

Capitalism doesn't even come close.

If that constitutes "moral ethics" then I, for one, believe that "moral ethics" should be treated as tantamount to crimes against humanity.

But, beyond the merely factual, there's the theory and philosophy of it. Marxism has a calloused, arrogant disregard for the individual. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - as measured and determined by someone other than the individual whose abilities and needs are in question. As such, once the Marxist powers-that-be have "determined" the abilities and needs of a given individual, that individual no longer has any say or control over how his or her abilities are to be employed - they must, under pain of physical punishment, be employed in the manner the Marxist powers-that-be have decided is in the "best interests" of the collective. Further, once an individual's needs have been "determined" by the Marxist powers-that-be, that individual has no say or control over what he or she can obtain, or not, as he or she wishes to using his or her own capabilities (which, after all, no longer belong to him or her, but to the collective, see above), but must be satisfied with what the Marxist powers-that-be have decided he or she needs - not what he or she wants, but only what they think he or she needs - and must accept what he or she is given under pain of physical punishment.

I do not believe that I mince any words when I say that Marxism is nothing more than slavery in fancy-dress clothes.

Capitalism, by comparison, holds the individual - and that individual's ability to make his or her own destiny, to decide his or her own fate, on the strength of his or her own native wits, and with the companionship of people of his or her own choosing - in the highest moral regard.

But even beyond that, Capitalism understands that one person's desires might be another's annoyance from time to time, and in the event that happens, in the first instance creates the mechanisms and procedural due-process rules necessary to assist those individuals in maximally and efficiently working out their conflict together on a voluntary basis. And, to back that process up, Capitalism has developed and deployed a whole apparatus that, fairly and justly delineates mechanisms to enforce the reasonable agreements amongst individuals in order to avoid the problems of free-ridership and faithlessness.

That, to me, is true morality; not the grotesque frauds the Marxists parade around as "moral ethics."

I wonder, has anyone pointed out to the Dalai Lama that his statement necessarily entails his affirmation of the seventy-one, plus million deaths caused - primarily for ideological reasons - by Marxism and Marxists? Is the Dalai Lama really that bloodthirsty?

[SunkenCiv]

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

This is hilarious by the way -- the hard core left hate the Dalai Lama because he's anti-gay etc.

[aruanan]

(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

Looks like the incarnation of the previous Dalai Lama is also an economic illiterate. Maybe the economic understanding part of his tendency to exist didn't make the transfer to the new body.

[XenaLee]

Wait a minute! Does Obama know this? I bet he wouldn’t have snubbed the Dalai if he’d known he was a fellow Marxist. Such a trajedy.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good one! From an appreciative person in the dollypartonesque hills of Tennessee.

[St. Louis Conservative]

Absolutely. Marxism is evil through and through. It is a 100% evil ideology.

[Shady]

Then he does not believe in his own faith. The are mutually exclusive. “Religion is the opiate of the masses...”

[DoughtyOne]

This guy does know a Marxist nation occupies his homeland right?

Sweet Buddha what an ill thought out comment. I thought these folks meditated. Evidently not on world affairs.

[ScreamingFist]

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

LOL! What can you say. Commies hunting down his followers, muslims blow up his shrines, and this fool praises the moral ethics of.......people trying to kill him. Go back to the mountains and smoke more pot.....dumbass.

[ExpatGator]

Dalai Lama is code for dumbass Tibetan.

[Vaquero]

Carl Spackler:

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

[PGR88]

Maybe his comments are too deep for me...

Look what Marxism did to your Tibet

[GodGunsGuts]

Perhaps that explains why he sold out his fellow countrymen to Red China by declaring that Tibet DOES NOT seek independence! The Dalai Lama is a phony! He was probably a Red China puppet all along.

[steve0]

Let his marxists brothers in China eat him alive, literally.

[ElkGroveDan]

Well he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Alex Murphy]

"Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures.

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

Ping for later

[Flint]

Apparently he feels quite comfortable coming into the USA now and announcing that he is a Marxist. It’s a shame.

[ETL]

Does he think this will get him invited to a family dinner in the WH?

Lol! And it might work!

[muawiyah]

Obama sees through the smokescreen.