How is dialectical materialism based communism necessarily atheistic?

[Cresh13]

I’ve been researching about Communism and Atheism lately and I’ve come to known that communism itself is not atheistic but only a particular strain of it, communism that is based on dialectical materialism. I have a hard time digesting the research material so can someone sum up why this strain of communism is inherently atheistic? Thanks!

 

[Khalid]

Because a materialist system is necessarily closed and mechanistic (Epictetus, Spinoza, Newton-Leibniz), which leaves no room for God, except for the “atheist’s god” of pantheism (=god is a physical form, the universe, identified with the mechanical laws of the physical). A system must either be “dualist” (Gnostics, Descartes) or, for lack of a better world, “spiritual” or “holistic” (such as those of Plato and Aristotle) to be amenable to God, and only the spiritual or holistic type of system doesn’t reduce to materialism when taken to its logical conclusion.

 

[Cresh13]

Because a materialist system is necessarily closed and mechanistic (Epictetus, Spinoza, Newton-Leibniz), which leaves no room for God, except for the “atheist’s god” of pantheism (=god is a physical form, the universe, identified with the mechanical laws of the physical). A system must either be “dualist” (Gnostics, Descartes) or, for lack of a better world, “spiritual” or “holistic” (such as those of Plato and Aristotle) to be amenable to God, and only the spiritual or holistic type of system doesn’t reduce to materialism when taken to its logical conclusion.

So is this the only atheistic element to communism? Or are they others? What I don’t get is why communism influenced several atheist rulers to execute religious lay people and clergy, ban religious worship, destroy churches and implement state wide atheistic policies. On what basis did these atheist rulers commit such actions? What is it about communism that is so anti-religious? It doesn’t make sense for these rulers to carry out these atrocities simply because they believed in a materialist economic system, that is closed and mechanistic, and leaves no room for God.

 

[Qoeleth]

Because a materialist system is necessarily closed and mechanistic (Epictetus, Spinoza, Newton-Leibniz), which leaves no room for God, except for the “atheist’s god” of pantheism (=god is a physical form, the universe, identified with the mechanical laws of the physical).

I am suprised you put Epictetus into this category, the same Epictetus who said:
“Concerning the Gods, there are who deny the very existence of the
Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns
itself nor has forethought for anything. A third party attribute to
it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters,
not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on
earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not with respect
to each individual. A fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates are
those that cry:-- ‘I move not without Thy knowledge!’”

Obviously, to Epictetus, Socrates was the exemplary sage.

Perhaps you are thinking of Epicurus, who said that “the Gods exists, but had no concern for the world or for men.”

 

[Khalid]

Epicurus is another good one (an even better one, in fact), but Epictetus was a materialist (a Stoic Pantheist). Pantheism, where the universe is god, but the universe is still all that ever was, is, or will be (in the words of Carl Sagan), is still a form of materialism: calling the material (even if it’s called “incorporeal substance”) divine, while denying anything exists beyond the material.

Epictetus above is saying that he does not move except in God, because he is God, and the world is God: as Paul quoted a Greek poet as saying in the New Testament, “in him we live and move and have our being”, he repurposed and recontextualized this quote to orthodox monotheism, whereas the original author was a pantheist: “in him [nature-god] we live and move and have our being”, because we live in nature, move in nature, and have our being from nature. Pantheism isn’t anything different from materialism or naturalism, except in calling nature “God” as well as “nature”. It’s still the same thing no matter what name it’s called.

Many of the atheists scientists today are near pantheists, such as Hawking, DeGrasse Tyson, etc., judging by their comments when speaking on the “mysticism of nature” for lack of a better term.

 

[JRKH]

So is this the only atheistic element to communism? Or are they others? **What I don’t get is why communism influenced several atheist rulers to execute religious lay people and clergy, ban religious worship, destroy churches and implement state wide atheistic policies. On what basis did these atheist rulers commit such actions? **What is it about communism that is so anti-religious? It doesn’t make sense for these rulers to carry out these atrocities simply because they believed in a materialist economic system, that is closed and mechanistic, and leaves no room for God.

I believe that at least part of the answer to this (bolded) question is…
For many centuries the Church and the state were intimately linked in the minds of the people - and the revolutionaries. This was particularly true in places that had “state churches” such as Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Destroying the power of the old government meant destroying the power of the Church which was seen by the revolutionaries as an arm and tool of the government in oppressing the people.

Now why these revolutionaries failed to see the good - the complimentary - aspects of faith and church is a question I have always wondered about for many of the principles espoused by the “communists” have parallel principles in Christianity…
The answer I have reached is - perhaps - a bit simplistic, but I believe that once the devil got a firm grip on the hearts of the revolutionaries he blinded them to seeing **anything ** good in the Churches…any Churches. These man gave themselves over to this anger and destroyed (or attempted to) the good with the bad.

Anyway -

Since I am no student of these things (except for being a history buff) I’m sure others can give other and/or better reasons…but I can’t help but think that the close relationship between Church and State - prevalent in most countries at the time - caused the church to be seen as an equal oppressor with the state.

Peace
James

 

[St_Francis]

Communism requires that the individual be subservient to the state; to be subservient to God rather than to the state is un-communist: one thing Christ said that the communists believe is “No man can setve two masters.”

 

[JRKH]

Communism requires that the individual be subservient to the state; to be subservient to God rather than to the state is un-communist: one thing Christ said that the communists believe is “No man can setve two masters.”

Amen -

Jesus also said that he who would be the greatest must be the servant of the others - as well as love your neighbor as yourself and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. These three things set up a dynamic in which each person is responsible - subservient - to his neighbor out of Love for that neighbor and Love of God.

If these things are devoutly embraced by a community many benefits will flow for many evils will be frowned upon because they run contrary to the faith.

Communism as implemented failed on several points - but this is probably the biggest.
They threw out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of embracing the basic concepts of the faith which spoke to fairness and love and joy and sharing and communeity they Chose to make war on the Church and alienated many potential allies among the masses they were claiming to liberate…

Peace
James

 

[Qoeleth]

Epicurus is another good one (an even better one, in fact), but Epictetus was a materialist (a Stoic Pantheist). Pantheism, where the universe is god, but the universe is still all that ever was, is, or will be (in the words of Carl Sagan), is still a form of materialism: calling the material (even if it’s called “incorporeal substance”) divine, while denying anything exists beyond the material.

Epictetus above is saying that he does not move except in God, because he is God, and the world is God: as Paul quoted a Greek poet as saying in the New Testament, “in him we live and move and have our being”, he repurposed and recontextualized this quote to orthodox monotheism, whereas the original author was a pantheist: “in him [nature-god] we live and move and have our being”, because we live in nature, move in nature, and have our being from nature. Pantheism isn’t anything different from materialism or naturalism, except in calling nature “God” as well as “nature”. It’s still the same thing no matter what name it’s called.

Many of the atheists scientists today are near pantheists, such as Hawking, DeGrasse Tyson, etc., judging by their comments when speaking on the “mysticism of nature” for lack of a better term.

With all respects, I would not characterize Epictetus position in that way. He certainly was not a materialist, strongly beliving in the immortality of the soul, the duality of the realm of the intellectual and the material, etc., all of which align him somewhat to Plato. But, unlike Plato, he considered God to be somewhat more personal, approaching the Hebrew position.

Epictetus, for example, says the human is a ‘poor soul burdened with a body’, and that on earth, we are exiled from a true heavenly homeland. He says that God created us in order to contemplate and to praise Him, and that in the soul we are akin to God, while in the body, akin to earth. He says that God is aware of all our actions, and assigns a gaurdian spirit to each person. All of which is akin to Augustine, but certainly refuting the possibility of pantheism or materialism.

Epictetus, like Marcus Aurelius, certainly wasn’t a textbook Stoic. I don’t claim to be an expert on Epictetus, but I am intimately familiar with all his writings and thought. The writings of Epictetus were recognised as being similar to Christian thought in the early Church- for example, it is well worth reading St. Nilus’ handbook of Epictetus’ sayings, which can be found in the Minge Greek Patrology.

 

[Gorgias]

What is it about communism that is so anti-religious? It doesn’t make sense for these rulers to carry out these atrocities simply because they believed in a materialist economic system, that is closed and mechanistic, and leaves no room for God.

If by ‘communism’, you mean the systems that proceeded from the philosophies of Marx and Engels in the 19th century, then it seems quite clear: perceiving the history of humanity as purely the history of ‘class struggles’, Marxist philosophy sees religion as proceeding from society and the state (not from God or from humanity’s desire to reach out to God). Therefore, the function of religion is simply to provide a means by which the bourgeoisie might oppress the proletariat. (Remember? Religion is the ‘opiate of the masses’?) With this construction thus established, the only proper response to organized religion in a Marxist context is to destroy these structures by which humans are oppressed. These ‘atrocities’, viewed from the Marxist perspective, aren’t atrocities at all – they’re heroic, laudable actions intended to free mankind from tyranny!

 

[Khalid]

With all respects, I would not characterize Epictetus position in that way. He certainly was not a materialist, strongly beliving in the immortality of the soul, the duality of the realm of the intellectual and the material, etc., all of which align him somewhat to Plato. But, unlike Plato, he considered God to be somewhat more personal, approaching the Hebrew position.

Epictetus, for example, says the human is a ‘poor soul burdened with a body’, and that on earth, we are exiled from a true heavenly homeland. He says that God created us in order to contemplate and to praise Him, and that in the soul we are akin to God, while in the body, akin to earth. He says that God is aware of all our actions, and assigns a gaurdian spirit to each person. All of which is akin to Augustine, but certainly refuting the possibility of pantheism or materialism.

Epictetus, like Marcus Aurelius, certainly wasn’t a textbook Stoic. I don’t claim to be an expert on Epictetus, but I am intimately familiar with all his writings and thought. The writings of Epictetus were recognised as being similar to Christian thought in the early Church- for example, it is well worth reading St. Nilus’ handbook of Epictetus’ sayings, which can be found in the Minge Greek Patrology.

I will consider what you say, especially with sources - what volume of PG is it in? and, are there any studies dealing with Epictetus’ thought and early Christianity? (As there are studies dealing with Neoplatonism and early Christianity in the Alexandrian Fathers, etc.)

 

[empther]

When I saw this thread, I thought of Bishop Sheen who often commented on communism.
Then I saw this:

If by ‘communism’, you mean the systems that proceeded from the philosophies of Marx and Engels in the 19th century, then it seems quite clear: perceiving the history of humanity as purely the history of ‘class struggles’, Marxist philosophy sees religion as proceeding from society and the state (not from God or from humanity’s desire to reach out to God). Therefore, the function of religion is simply to provide a means by which the bourgeoisie might oppress the proletariat. (Remember? Religion is the ‘opiate of the masses’?) With this construction thus established, the only proper response to organized religion in a Marxist context is to destroy these structures by which humans are oppressed. These ‘atrocities’, viewed from the Marxist perspective, aren’t atrocities at all – they’re heroic, laudable actions intended to free mankind from tyranny!

I agree with most of this quote, but I’ll try to summarize what I remember Bishop Sheen said.

Karl Marx was a lifelong atheist. Early in his “career” ( he never actually had a job but lived off his mother’s money and later Engels, a model citizen ) he edited some atheist magazine. Many years later, he dreamed up a way to promote atheism. He thought of communism.

His “class struggle” theory, appropriated from Hegel and some sociologist of the day,. leaves out the individual as a personal agent determining his own fate. It’s the class, you know. Men are nothing more than soldiers in an army, ants in an ant colony, you get the idea. Only by acting in unison with the other soldiers in the army can the man prevail, in the class struggle. And so, individuality, self-determinism, self-responsitility, and everything else that makes a man a person is unimportant or don’t even exist. Man is an animal in a herd.
Of course, we know a man. may console himself in the midst of poverty and oppression by seeking God. This is the “opiate of the people”. So, to achieve success in the “class struggle” and get men fully committed to it , we must eliminate belief in God, and the communists try to do this.
Also, we communists claim “class struggle” is a law of nature. It’s natural. To make it sound scientific, to make it sound as inevitable as the fight of two ant colonies fighting each other for the same territory, we must exclude God and leave man nothing more than a clever animal.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a “class struggle”. There are the rich and the poor, the blacks and the whites, the intelligensia and the uneducated, but it’s not an "inevitable " law of nature that they will try to annihilate each other. Ways can be found to resolve their individual interests. In the U.S., we use democracy. Individuals in such a society can remain self-determining individuals.
Whether or not individuals believe in God is ( generally ) irrelevant ******** to the democratic process or other successful means of resolving class differences, so we don’t need either atheism or belief for this socio-political process.

**
****** Yeah, I know how important religious beliefs are to a desirable society, but here we’re talking in the broadest generalities. Let’s not turn the topic into an argument about the value of Christianity. The topic is socio-political.

 

[Cresh13]

If by ‘communism’, you mean the systems that proceeded from the philosophies of Marx and Engels in the 19th century, then it seems quite clear: perceiving the history of humanity as purely the history of ‘class struggles’, Marxist philosophy sees religion as proceeding from society and the state (not from God or from humanity’s desire to reach out to God). Therefore, the function of religion is simply to provide a means by which the bourgeoisie might oppress the proletariat. (Remember? Religion is the ‘opiate of the masses’?) With this construction thus established, the only proper response to organized religion in a Marxist context is to destroy these structures by which humans are oppressed. These ‘atrocities’, viewed from the Marxist perspective, aren’t atrocities at all – they’re heroic, laudable actions intended to free mankind from tyranny!

Solid post Gorgias! And thanks for digesting it further empther.

So to get this straight, the philosophy of Marx and Engels saw religion as something the upper classes utilized in order to “oppress” the lower classes and keep them “in place”? And, being seeing history from the perspective of class struggle, they saw religious belief as something that not only oppressed the masses but also as an obstruction to a unified society (since religion places emphasis on the spiritual, the afterlife, and not, the here and now, or the progress of society). Did I get that right?

Also, I want to clarify that religion, from the philosophies of Marx and Engels, saw religion as the “opiate of the masses” and something that oppressed the people because it made them optimistically focus on a realm that didn’t exist? I don’t know, I’m just guessing here. Why did Marx and Engels see religion as an opiate of the masses, how did it “oppress” the people?

Also, I understand that the philosophy, from what you described, reduced reality to the natural world only and that, it saw religion as a obstacle that needed to be removed. This implies atheism. However, is there anything in the Marx-Engels philosophy that explicitly states that atheism, a lack of belief in God, is needed, or plays a central role in dialectical materialism based communism?

Lastly, does this philosophy have any other gripes with religion? Like, instead of seeing it merely as something that oppressed the people and as an obstacle to societal unification, did they also see it as backward, anti-scientific, irrational or delusional? Was it stated anywhere in the philosophy that religion and human progress cannot co-exist?

 

[empther]

Cresh13,

I think Marx said that capitalism, that is, concentration of wealth and means of production in the hands of a few millionaires, oppressed the masses, not religion, but religion kept people from killing each other and made them persons instead of animals. So religion had to go.

Bishop Sheen said communism tries to destroy the personhood in people.

The communists say we are nothing but material beings, ants in an ant colony, and religion says the very opposite. Religion says we are persons with souls and free will and an eternal destiny. This makes communism unsafe because believers in God will not do what is necessary to make a society purely communist. There would be not torture and murder of people etc. all of which is needed to keep communism in power, since people don’t want to be slaves of the state.

An effective means of destroying personhood is state ownership of everything. If you take away property rights, there are no personal rights. You get the dictatorship of the proletariat, with central planning deciding what everybody does with their lives. So in a communist society the state owns everything.

Of course the communists couldn’t sell this system to the moronic masses, so they tell the have nots “you have nothing to lose but your chains”.
Yeah, exchange your chains for prisons.

Why do die hard communists be die hard communists? Don’t they know that a communist society stinks? Of course they do, but they also know die hard communists will be at the top, with special privileges and money, while all the moronic masses will be under them.

What? You thought die hard communists were idealists? Forget it. At least not the savvy commies who know they will be on the top. There are, of course, members of the moronic masses that will think they will improve their lives under communism, and there are intellectuals like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who dream of a communist state without the oppression ( a naive idea that has never happened and never will happen ), but only the loyal, ruthless, savvy commies will profit from the dictatorship.

 

[JRKH]

A most interesting post empther…If I may venture a couple of points…

First - just for clarity what you describe below as communism (everything owned by the Government) is actually socialism and indeed is the form of government of the late USSR and of China and other communist states. These are not “communist” counties no matter how much they like to claim that they are.
Communism is defined by Merriam Webster as:
a : a theory advocating elimination of private property
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

That said…I agree with much of what you say below.

Cresh13,

I think Marx said that capitalism, that is, concentration of wealth and means of production in the hands of a few millionaires, oppressed the masses, not religion, but religion kept people from killing each other and made them persons instead of animals. So religion had to go.

Bishop Sheen said communism tries to destroy the personhood in people.

The communists say we are nothing but material beings, ants in an ant colony, and religion says the very opposite. Religion says we are persons with souls and free will and an eternal destiny. This makes communism unsafe because believers in God will not do what is necessary to make a society purely communist.

I think this is very true…but I also think it important to recognize that the views of many - especially early - communists were formed, not just by the fundamentals of religion - but by the way that religion was practiced with, by, and through many governments of the times. This was especially true in Russia. The link between the Czar and the Czar’s authority had as much to do with religious support as anything else.
The Church taught that the Czar was ordained of God…
Thus - quite apart from any fundamental “Christian” concepts like Love your neighbor, share with your brother, do not be greedy and so forth…ALL of which could be quite at home in a society where all things are “held in common and are available to all as needed”.

There would be not torture and murder of people etc. all of which is needed to keep communism in power, since people don’t want to be slaves of the state.

I think that there would be those who disagree with this. Certainly “religion” is not clean of the blood stain of torture and murder.
Sad but true…

An effective means of destroying personhood is state ownership of everything. If you take away property rights, there are no personal rights. You get the dictatorship of the proletariat, with central planning deciding what everybody does with their lives. So in a communist society the state owns everything.

Of course the communists couldn’t sell this system to the moronic masses, so they tell the have nots “you have nothing to lose but your chains”.
Yeah, exchange your chains for prisons.

Bingo…You nailed it here. They sold the system as “communism” when in reality what they were building was socialism - and socialism carries with it many evils and few ways to redress them.
They just traded in the Czar and his court for a “Premier” and his Oligarchy.

True communism - as defined above my Mariam Webster - and not as promoted by Marx or Lenin or Mao - could only function on the same principle as our own U.S. Government - and pointed out in the U.S. Declaration of independence.
It would have to “derive it’s just power from the consent of the people” - and to be truly effective, most of the actual authority would need to remain in the hands of the local people and governments and not centralized.
Sadly - the U.S. seems to be headed down the same poor path towards total socialism as others…and the result will wind up being the same…

Why do die hard communists be die hard communists? Don’t they know that a communist society stinks? Of course they do, but they also know die hard communists will be at the top, with special privileges and money, while all the moronic masses will be under them.

What? You thought die hard communists were idealists? Forget it. At least not the savvy commies who know they will be on the top. There are, of course, members of the moronic masses that will think they will improve their lives under communism, and there are intellectuals like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who dream of a communist state without the oppression ( a naive idea that has never happened and never will happen ), but only the loyal, ruthless, savvy commies will profit from the dictatorship.

Yes - what you speak of here is the age old and underlying problem of pretty much any system anywhere…It speaks of greed and pride and all the other ills that has plagued man in every age.

Peace
James

 

[empther]

Communism is defined by Merriam Webster as:
a : a theory advocating elimination of private property
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

I can see that if Marx was on the editorial board of Marriam Webster, that’s what he would write. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Of course, it would be a lie, because no such system could exist. It’s inevitable that stronger men, cleverer men, unscrupulous men, will take over power over everybody and everything for themselves, and they won’t care what Marx said in Communist Manifesto.
So will we get this definition:

Communism is defined by Merriam Webster as:
a : a theory advocating elimination of private property as administrated by a total dictatorship
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed except for those at the top of the required total dictatorship who get more than their share

Marx was lying anyways. He real goal was to oppress people. He hated everybody, even his own mother. Communism was his best weapon in the war against humanity.

Surely there is nobody today who really believes Marx was a humanitarian! :bigyikes:

---

so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Compare utopian socialism.

Communism adds one more feature to socialism: the dictatorship.
Thus, everything is owned by the state, not distrubuted in the community as a whole.
What’s the difference?
In a country like England and other European countries which are largely but not completely socialist, people vote to continue the current arrangements or change them. ( so far no people has voted for complete socialism, and I think it can’t happen because people will always want some private ownership )
In communism, people have no vote.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some conservatives would disagree violently with me, but I see Marx and Adam Smith as quite similar in their underlying assumption. It is only in application that they differ.

Both posit a vaguely deistic mechanistic view of the way human history operates, and that human agency is essentially futile in the operation of the “big machine of history”, because it can’t change the grinding of the “machine”. To Marx, it was the “dialectic”. To Smith, it was the “invisible hand”.

Because of the mechanistic views of Marx and, for that matter, Adam Smith, one who adheres to them necessarily has to be at least somewhat indifferent to the sufferings of humanity in the process. The machine rolls on, and there’s nothing anybody can do or should even attempt to do to prevent its grinding people up in the process. Marx, indeed, rather thought the machine could be “helped along” by removing obstacles in its path.

Religion, and in the Bolsheviks’ case Christianity in particular, is a competing view; a seriously competing view. Christianity teaches that there is evil in the world; that its operation is contrary to the Will of God and that humans are obligated to right the evils, both on a corporate and an individual basis. Thus, the “machine”, when it grinds people up, is to be opposed, stopped, redirected, taken apart.

The two views really can’t coexist. Christianity opposes the “machine” view by its teachings and its works. Marxism opposes the Christian view by trying to grind it under the “wheels of history”.

 

[JRKH]

I can see that if Marx was on the editorial board of Marriam Webster, that’s what he would write. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Of course I think it safe to assume that Marx was NOT on the Mariam Webster editorial board…

Of course, it would be a lie, because no such system could exist.

In this I wholeheartedly agree - at least in any sizable, or secular way.
I would submit that such a system actually has and still does exist in such places as monasteries where all live in common, work in common and share in common.

It’s inevitable that stronger men, cleverer men, unscrupulous men, will take over power over everybody and everything for themselves, and they won’t care what Marx said in Communist Manifesto.

Yes - this is pretty much - as you say - inevitable when the community does not share some very basic principles in common.

so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Compare utopian socialism.

Thanks. Could you share the source for this?

Communism adds one more feature to socialism: the dictatorship.
Thus, everything is owned by the state, not distrubuted in the community as a whole.

Yes -

What’s the difference?
In a country like England and other European countries which are largely but not completely socialist, people vote to continue the current arrangements or change them. ( so far no people has voted for complete socialism, and I think it can’t happen because people will always want some private ownership )
In communism, people have no vote.

This is a good and very important point - comparing the parliamentarian (or republican) model of socialism to the Soviet one. In places like England the socialism is “growing out of” the representative form of government and as you say the voter will do what he can to retain some semblance of control via private ownership even while seeking a more equitable distribution of goods, care for the poor etc.

Unfortunately the types you alluded to earlier, the stronger men, cleverer men, unscrupulous men, are present in these places as well and will seek just as resolutely to gain power, and control.
It’s a disease that infects every system everywhere.

Peace
James

 

[empther]

Thanks. Could you share the source for this?

dictionary com
dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism?s=t

Unfortunately the types you alluded to earlier, the stronger men, cleverer men, unscrupulous men, are present in these places as well and will seek just as resolutely to gain power, and control.
It’s a disease that infects every system everywhere.

Peace
James

In America, we have Obama and his gang.

“Thank God for Obama. I won’t have to work to pay my mortgage. I won’t have to work to buy gas for my car…” Woman who voted for Obama, the day after he was elected in 2008. Getting a free ride yet, lady?

 

[empther]

Some conservatives would disagree violently with me, but I see Marx and Adam Smith as quite similar in their underlying assumption. It is only in application that they differ.

Both posit a vaguely deistic mechanistic view of the way human history operates, and that human agency is essentially futile in the operation of the “big machine of history”, because it can’t change the grinding of the “machine”. To Marx, it was the “dialectic”. To Smith, it was the “invisible hand”.

I have Wealth of Nations at my bedside and don’t know what you’re talking about.

In communism “the big machine of history” is the dictatorship that tells everybody which shoe to put on first.

The only “invisible hand” in Smith’s book is the effectiveness of free enterprise to produce more wealth at less cost for everybody. In pure capitalism, ( which also doesn’t exist anymore than a pure socialism or communism ) nobody is in charge.

There is his famous example of the pin factory to demonstrate the division of labor. One man draws a wire, another sharpens the point, another prepares the end for the head, another puts the head on, another polishes the head etc etc etc etc.
“In this way a dozen men can produce a thousand pins a day while one man working alone without experience would be labored to produce ten pins a day or even one.”

In communism, we have the ineffieciency of central planning. In Communist Russia, a man in charge of a shoe factory was given a quota of shoes to produce, but central planners didn’t send him enough leather to make them. So he made baby shoes, more than anybody would buy. “Selling them was somebody else’s problem.”
Great system! :banghead:
This is not “the machine of history”. This is the machine of selfish commies who work for a system in which they think they can get to the top of the heap.