clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Cub Tracks’ groucho marxism

The latest in our long-running series of #Cubs-related news articles. This one comes from Freedonia, maybe.

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Groucho Marx Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Welcome to today’s episode of Cub Tracks news and notes™. Here we have material from current beat writers, bloggers, and the occasional in-house habitué, moonlighting. These pieces center around #Cubs, #MiLB, and #MLB baseball.

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” — Karl Marx.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Regardless of the seeming optimism generated by Tony Clark and Rob Manfred, it’s been obvious to me for some time that the two sides aren’t close and that a labor stoppage is all but certain. And that the Cubs planned for it. (The Cubs are in fact major players in this narrative, with anti-tanking and service-time measures on the table.)

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker.

That’s good management, in the business sense, identifying an issue, and creating a strategy to counter it. Even if you are a major player in how these issues were developed and how they are defined. Hell, even then.

Extra credit:

1. What is ‘tank’?

2. Define ‘management’.

The players, standing in for the ‘proletariat’ (working class) in this edition of the age-old class conflict, are struggling to have some control over the means of production, in which they assume the ‘bourgeois’ status their upper-middle-class presence points to. Ownership is beyond those class definitions. In fact they could be said to have no class. In this case, they are assuming the role of ‘bourgeoisie’, as they control the means of production, i.e., the players. Life isn’t as two-dimensional as even a cursory study of Marx’ Manifesto would have one believe. Some are more equal than others, and they are all family.

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” — Julius Marx

Both are in business creating jobs for lawyers, but this is not unusual, as the lawyers in society have long since managed to make social strata lawyers all the way down, whether you keep in shape chasing ambulances, coin-flipping, or rattling your jewelry. In any case, you’re running down your dream.

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” — Karl Marx

The conflict therefore has resonance for society writ large (preferably in dry-erase marker if crayons are lacking, or maybe chemtrails?). Cub Tracks apologizes for being so damn serious on a Thursday and reading so many damn books and is going to its room now to play Sid Meier’s version of the eternal conflict. Anything else would be нецивилизованный uncivilized.

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them... well, I have others.” — Julius Marx

As usual, * means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used on this page as sarcasm font. (In the comments section, use @ before and after your remarks @ to produce sarcasm font. In the text body. It doesn’t work in the headlines.)

Today in Cubs history:

Food for Thought:

Thanks for reading.