Is there any difference between a Communist and a Leftist?

[Darryl1958]

It doesn’t matter what the model was, the early Church was what I understand theoretical communism to be or close enough to call it that, it wasn’t forced but voluntary.

It was no more nor less theoretical communism than any family system is communism.

As far as “modern Marxist communist systems”, I wasn’t talking about this either but theoretical communism.

Marx was a theorist who pretty much defined what we mean by communism now.

Even tho I have never really read about communism, I would say that communism in theory and communism in practice are usually two quite different things.

That is pretty much like how the song sounds in my mind, and the sounds that happen when I actually open my mouth.

Communism will never work because people, by nature it seems, are too greedy, we do have a fallen nature at least it seems that way to me, that is why capitalism seems to suit many just fine.

You will find that happening already, as Paul criticizes what is happening at the Love Feast, that was a real Eucharistic meal with all the fixings. The actual food eventually became symbolic in the sense the Host would never be enough to fill the belly of anything larger than a church-mouse.

Unbridled capitalism, which the Catholic Church has spoken of many times, is very unchristian in its utter disregard, it seems, for everything except the “bottom line”.

Greed has been one of the seven deadly sins, even from the time of Dante’s inferno.
Capitalism itself, when used in the pejorative, is a Marxist term.

I would say that no system that is run by man is ever going to please everyone, there are some good things in every system but even if one were to use the good things of every system to come up with another system, it would still fall extremely short of a “good system”.

Maybe it would even be worse. That might end up like making a new car out of parts scavenged from a the junkyard.
Each system has its own logic and reasons.

We seem to forget that Jesus was quite a radical Person in His time and if He were here right now, in the Flesh so to speak, many, who call themself a follower of HIs, would find many things that they would disagree with.

Even in his own life time, the people closest to him had much to ponder in their minds, and they came to radically different conclusions about just who was the man.

Sometimes those that have all of their beliefs written down in a book or so that was/is written by someone else should step back and actually think about their “beliefs” that they say they have rather than just repeating them from rote.

All theories need a little bit of reality testing for sure.

It just might be the believers in God as opposed to those that do not believe in God that are going to be more shocked when they finally meet God.

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me” would imply that we have may have met God in the flesh so to speak, many many times.
What is ethereal and transcendent and mysterious is also as mundane and as ordinary as a hello and a smile. Maybe we have already met God, and have been meeting him every day of our life without even knowing it.
The Incarnation might just be like that.

 

[O_S_C]

Jim Jones self-identified as a communist. And all of his followers were communists like him. He only pretended to be a Christian long enough to suck his victims in. Some of his victims may have started out being Christian, but they had no knowledge of the difference between orthodox Christianity and heresy.

Do you think they had knowledge of the difference between orthodox Communism and heresy? It’s not like Jim Jones teaching have any resemblance to those of Karl Marx or Lenin. Or evenn Mao for that sake. But I don’t think that you too have the knowledge to see the difference.

The question is how was Jim Jones able to fool so many on the left into following him and loving him? There wasn’t a single conservative that died in the Jonestown massacre.

Because he wasn’t appealing to conservative sentiments. There are plenty of other cultists who attract conseratives rather than leftists.

 

[O_S_C]

Sorry, but ‘theoretical communism’ cannot exist in a pre-industrial state. Marx hadn’t even created communism! that’s like saying that archers were using ‘theoretical firearms’ in the first century.

Marx and Engels classified hunter- and gatherer societies as “primitive communism” - and that seems quite correct. And Engels wrote a text about the communist colonies in North America (New Harmony, Economy etc).

Neither Marx or Engels claimed that communist societies can’t exist before industrialism - they were aware of numerous examples - their claim was rather that it was highly unlikely that communism could be the dominating mode of production before industrialism. Of various reasons, not the least because earlier modes of production were not productive enough to free more than a small minority from the burden of labour so that they could take part in the governing of society.

By the way-Communism has been condemned by many Popes! as has socialism! Why-because it advocates a materialistic outlook, and by doing so reduces each person in value.

Marxist (though not necessarily all communists) do indeed have a materialistic and scientific outlook. But the materialism of Marx is not a materialism that denies the living, active, spiritual aspects of humanity. Marx was very polemical against the “mechanical” or “reductive” materialism of much Enlightenment thinking.

I would argue that communism is a much more spiritual ideology than capitalism is, because it loves life and values humanity deeply, where capitalism “love” abstractions and things and treats humanity just as a means towards capital growth.

One of Marx most central criticisms of capitalism is that it is fetischist and idolatrous.

 

[livingwordunity]

Because he wasn’t appealing to conservative sentiments. There are plenty of other cultists who attract conseratives rather than leftists.

Can you name a suicide cult that Christian conservatives have ever been attracted to?

 

[Tom_Baum]

Amandil

You wrote, “He didn’t even die for not giving the proceeds of the sale to the Church, he died because he lied about what he gave.”

Isn’t that what I wrote?

You also wrote, “Even Marx with his buddy Engels called religion, “the opiate of the masses.” To try and claim that Marx favored orthodox Christianity because it was communistic is a stretch to say the least.”

I never said “that Marx favored orthodox Christianity”, what I said was that some of what Marx is purported to have said could have been lifted right out of the Book of Acts.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Amandil

You wrote, “That right there is where you should have stopped and said no more. If you haven’t really read anything about communism, why are you even advocating for it?”

Who said that I was advocating it, I was merely pointing out that the earliest Christian Churches, as recorded in the Book of Acts, was very communal in that all shared all voluntarily, did they or did they not?

You then wrote, “Secondly, practice necessarily follows from theory. If an ideology is materialistic and deadly in practice, its a safe bet that it exists as such in theory.”

Practice does not necessarily follow from theory, human nature seems to have a way of altering things along the way, for just an example, many people have “theories” about child-rearing before they have a child and then when the reality of child-rearing sets in, many times most of their “theories” get thrown by the wayside.

Then you wrote, “If you care to see communism in practice, here is an article of the millions killed in the Ukraine due to Joseph Stalin’s force famine:”

Not to worry, communism is not the only “system” that is detrimental to human life, both spiritually and physically and something to think about: If all shared all, voluntarily, do you think that this would be a bad thing?

 

[Moonbug]

All communists are leftists but not all leftists are communist. Anarchism is leftist without being communist. Not all socialism is communist either so you can be a leftist socialist without necessarily being communist.

Your question is the same as asking if all right wingers are libertarians.

Very good answer.

 

[JB_Dugan]

Tom, this is getting off the topic of the thread but I really want to clarify some of your points that I find very interesting.

1. Is the world “perfect”? Seems to me that God said it was good, very good, but He didn’t say it was perfect, did He?

Right He didn’t say “perfect”. But I can’t imagine God doing ANYTHING that wasn’t perfect. We simple humans live in an imperfect world…by our standards. What God considers “good” must be perfect by His standards.

1. It doesn’t mention “mission of His Church” just as the bible doesn’t mention the Trinity but it is written right there for you to see and as far as “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,* and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”, all you have to do it look up the usccb. org website and look at the "books of the bible, it is right there.

Again, you are right…it is right there, word for word. Nothing about a “mission”.
Just the establishment of His Church, appointing Peter as head and conferring on him enormous power and responsibility.

1. If “Spiritual death is hell”, why does it say that “the captives shall be released and the dead shall rise”?, seems as if there is a captivity (hell) to be released from and a death (spiritual death) to rise from.

I don’t know why or where “it” says “the captives shall be released and the dead shall rise”
Tell me what “it” is so I can look that up.

On the surface I would say that “captives” being released, pertains to purgatory.

1. As far as “The “gates of the netherworld” sounds like the entrance to a weird amusement park ride.”, maybe you can take this up with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on their website, I, personally, do not take either hell or spiritual death lightly, they are very different but both beyond horrible and I am thankful that Jesus “won” the “keys” to both and will use these “keys” in due time, God’s Time.

Right again Tom. The Catholic Bishops do use the word “netherworld”. However the New American Bible uses the word “Hades” and other references use the word “hell”.

Could all be talking about the same thing just using different words?

I don’t see any difference between spiritual death and eternal damnation (netherworld, hell Hades…whatever). St Augustine views spiritual death and hell as one in the same.

"The death, then, of the soul (spiritual death) takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it.

For in that penal and everlasting punishment (hell), of which in its own place we are to speak more at large, the soul is justly said to die."

1. Jesus “won” the “keys” when He took the sins of humanity upon Himself on the cross and went to hell and death for you and me and everyone else, aren’t you grateful or do you not believe that He took our sins upon Himself on the cross?

I am still trying to understand this concept of Christ “winning the keys”. Actually it sounds like a protestant view.

The "keys to the Kingdom of Heaven"as referenced in Matthew 16:13-20 have a totally different meaning.
Pope John XXII taught: “The keys are a special power of binding and loosing by which the ecclesiastical judge should receive the worthy [into the kingdom of heaven] and exclude the unworthy therefrom),”

Remember that the words “bind” and “loose” are not metaphorical, but Jewish juridical terms.

These keys were given to Peter before Christ “won” them by dying on the cross.

Peter was called to be a rock (living stone) in Jesus’s Church and we are all called to be living stones, are we not?

Simon was given the name Kipha. Aramaic for “rock” not living stone. (Petra in Greek)

I am sure we could consider Peter to be sort of a living stone…but ROCK seems closer to a foundation than a stone.

I guess we could be called to be “living stones” in a sense, but Christ was dealing with Peter directly, not the apostles or us.

There is really only one explanation of that passage. Jesus wishes to make Peter the head of the whole community of those who believed in Him as the true Messias; that through this** foundation **(Peter) the Kingdom of Christ would be unconquerable; that the spiritual guidance of the faithful was placed in the hands of Peter, as the special representative of Christ.

 

[Tom_Baum]

JB Dugan

You wrote, “I don’t see any difference between spiritual death and eternal damnation (netherworld, hell Hades…whatever). St Augustine views spiritual death and hell as one in the same.”

Could be that St. Augustine had experienced neither hell nor spiritual death, but I have experienced both hell and spiritual death and I can tell you that they are different and I don’t for an instant believe that I have been thru worse than Jesus, actually, I have been thru a whole lot less than Jesus went thru and I am speaking about the spiritual, not the physical.

You then wrote, “These keys were given to Peter before Christ “won” them by dying on the cross.”

Could be we are talking about different “keys”, doesn’t matter, do you think/believe that Jesus went to hell, and I do mean hell, not the nice place of the dead as some seem to think/believe that Jesus went to and only to there?

If Jesus took our sins upon Himself and “paid the price”, so to speak, why do so many seem to think that He paid no price beyond the physical?

I guess that there will come a day when people come to the realization that what God actually did for us on the cross and suffered for us on the cross was not just the physical but that what He said on the cross was coming true, quite literally, as He said it.

Don’t you realize that we are the Body of Christ, we are Jesus’s Church and that Jesus is the Head of His Church and Jesus is the Foundation of His Church.

Jesus’s invitation was to “Come follow Me”, not to follow His Church, not to follow a follower of His, not to follow what was written about Him but to follow Him.

As it is written, we all have different “jobs”, so we all have different “paths” to follow, we are not called to be “clones”, different “jobs” because we are different parts of the “Body”, as it is written.

 

[Amandil]

Amandil

You wrote, “That right there is where you should have stopped and said no more. If you haven’t really read anything about communism, why are you even advocating for it?”

Who said that I was advocating it, I was merely pointing out that the earliest Christian Churches, as recorded in the Book of Acts, was very communal in that all shared all voluntarily, did they or did they not?

Communal is NOT communism. Big difference.

You then wrote, “Secondly, practice necessarily follows from theory. If an ideology is materialistic and deadly in practice, its a safe bet that it exists as such in theory.”

Practice does not necessarily follow from theory, human nature seems to have a way of altering things along the way, for just an example, many people have “theories” about child-rearing before they have a child and then when the reality of child-rearing sets in, many times most of their “theories” get thrown by the wayside.

Then all you are saying is that the “theories” in you example where just simply not well thought out, or that they weren’t considered fully, or that they didn’t foresee the logical conclusions of their theories.

As another gentleman pointed out, “practice” is necessarily where “theories” are tested.

Yet these deadly “theories”, like communism, which are theories enacted in the name of a “future utopia”, a future of which they have no real possibility of knowing. Yet to get to this “utopia” they more often than not will commit every crime imaginable in the present just so long as they think it will take them there.

Pure capitalism is not much better. But both pure capitalism and communism see man as a “means” rather then an end. In either of these systems man only has value so long as he is participating to the advancement of the system.

Then you wrote, “If you care to see communism in practice, here is an article of the millions killed in the Ukraine due to Joseph Stalin’s force famine:”

Not to worry, communism is not the only “system” that is detrimental to human life, both spiritually and physically and something to think about: If all shared all, voluntarily, do you think that this would be a bad thing?

Mark 14:[7] For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Pure capitalism is not much better. But both pure capitalism and communism see man as a “means” rather then an end. In either of these systems man only has value so long as he is participating to the advancement of the system.

I don’t think a pure system of either has ever existed anywhere.

I like the idea of capitalism best because it harnesses human nature for productive purposes.

However, those who win in the marketplace should be generous of the less fortunate.

That is the best system!

 

[JB_Dugan]

It is the Communists’ intention to make people think that personal success is somehow achieved at the expense of others and that every successful man has hurt somebody by becoming successful.

It is the Communists’ aim to discourage all personal effort and to drive men into a hopeless, dispirited, gray herd of robots who have lost all personal ambition, who are easy to rule, willing to obey and willing to exist in selfless servitude to the State.

 

[Darryl1958]

I don’t think a pure system of either has ever existed anywhere.

I like the idea of capitalism best because it harnesses human nature for productive purposes.

However, those who win in the marketplace should be generous of the less fortunate.

That is the best system!

I don’t think that Adam Smith really considered human nature and human society perfectible.
Hegelian system of thesis<>antithesis>>>synthesis proposes and end game of an end to history where the inherent goodness of humankind is eventually realized.

Goodness in mankind is certainly possible, but is not something that we ought to expect from anybody, anytime, anywhere.

Free enterprise is about limits being built into the very system.

 

[Amandil]

I don’t think a pure system of either has ever existed anywhere.

I like the idea of capitalism best because it harnesses human nature for productive purposes.

However, those who win in the marketplace should be generous of the less fortunate.

That is the best system!

I like capitalism just so long as there are plenty of capitalists.

The possible problem with capitalism, as well as socialism/communism, is that when it is unfettered they both have a tendency to concentrate wealth and power among the few elites while enslaving everyone under their yoke.

Capitalism says that by its natural process that it can grow and grow so that the prosperity gained by the producers will always eventually spread, or “trickle down”, through the system to everyone else. And while in some circumstances this may be true, but, as we have seen that’s not always the case.

Socialism/communism is the reaction to the old system of mercantilism, that’s where they get the idea that the is only “x” amount of pie to go around. That is why to the communists they are so adamant about having total control of the pie through the state which is suppose to represent the majority “proletariat”. What really happens is that the elites of the proletariats assign themselves or raise themselves up to “the state”(think union bosses) and who are in charge of “redistribution” simply enrich themselves and become a ruling class while enslaving the rest under state rule(despotism).

Which in many ways is not too different than what we have now in our government. A permanent ruling class of people who buy influence by selling off political favors and benefits to corporations and unions as well as selling meager entitlements to the not-well-off so as to keep their jobs in government.

Oh, what the Founders would say to us if they saw us now…

 

[O_S_C]

I like capitalism just so long as there are plenty of capitalists.

The possible problem with capitalism, as well as socialism/communism, is that when it is unfettered they both have a tendency to concentrate wealth and power among the few elites while enslaving everyone under their yoke.

Capitalism says that by its natural process that it can grow and grow so that the prosperity gained by the producers will always eventually spread, or “trickle down”, through the system to everyone else. And while in some circumstances this may be true, but, as we have seen that’s not always the case.

I believe that capitalism is probably the most ungodly society that has ever existed. It is built upon human antagonism, it promotes greed and it serves no other cause than profitability and abstract growth - human beings are just tools towards this end. It creates differences and hostility between people, not unity and love. Thus it is by definition extremely sinful.

Being for capitalism is by necessity being against God.

That is why to the communists they are so adamant about having total control of the pie through the state which is suppose to represent the majority “proletariat”. What really happens is that the elites of the proletariats assign themselves or raise themselves up to “the state”(think union bosses) and who are in charge of “redistribution” simply enrich themselves and become a ruling class while enslaving the rest under state rule(despotism).

You confuse communism with revisionism (i.e. social democracy). Communists are against the state. And the point of the communist revolution is not actually to abolish the capitalists but rather to abolish the proletariat (and through that also abolishing capitalists).

 

[Darryl1958]

I like capitalism just so long as there are plenty of capitalists.

Without such competition, it is not really a capitalist system any more.

The possible problem with capitalism, as well as socialism/communism, is that when it is unfettered they both have a tendency to concentrate wealth and power among the few elites while enslaving everyone under their yoke.

What a businessman desires is monopolies and cartels, to ensure security, and what a socialist desires is government power to ensure that he is able to impose his more ‘enlightened and godly’ ideals upon a world where such ideals go against human nature.

Capitalism says that by its natural process that it can grow and grow

The type of economy that came about through the enlightenment and industrial revolutions created growth, and with that growth came real wealth. There is nothing inevitable about whether that wealth will spread however.

so that the prosperity gained by the producers will always eventually spread, or “trickle down”, through the system to everyone else. And while in some circumstances this may be true, but, as we have seen that’s not always the case.

A system of liberal individual rights, where privileges are not inherited but are earned is what was needed. That was what the American revolution introduced to the world. The old regime based on inherited wealth had to be displaced from its place of executive privilege. For that, constant vigilance is necessary.

Socialism/communism is the reaction to the old system of mercantilism, that’s where they get the idea that the is only “x” amount of pie to go around. That is why to the communists they are so adamant about having total control of the pie through the state which is suppose to represent the majority “proletariat”. What really happens is that the elites of the proletariats assign themselves or raise themselves up to “the state”(think union bosses) and who are in charge of “redistribution” simply enrich themselves and become a ruling class while enslaving the rest under state rule(despotism).

It is inevitable. When people have this wonderful illusion that goes against human nature that nobody really believes in, the tendency to impose it on people for their own good becomes too strong to resist. The results have always been the same.

Which in many ways is not too different than what we have now in our government. A permanent ruling class of people who buy influence by selling off political favors and benefits to corporations and unions as well as selling meager entitlements to the not-well-off so as to keep their jobs in government.

Crony capitalism is not really capitalism at all, especially when it is based on selling favors to the ‘proletariat’ as well to buy their votes in the name of entitlements.
That has always been the achilles heel of a democratic system. When people believe in government more than in themselves and the value of their own hard work, you no longer have a capitalist system.

Oh, what the Founders would say to us if they saw us now…

It has always been a grim task. The fact that a tea party emerged and started demanding that government give them less rather than more, going against the trend in the rest of the world in response to the latest crisis, is a sign that the American revolution lives on.

There is still a bedrock of support for free enterprise ideals in some countries, and in those countries the economy works better, often in spite of everything else.

 

[Darryl1958]

Just as an additional thought, to the extent that people arguing against communist advocacy would be the ones who tend not to self-identify as leftists, the differences between a communist and a leftist in the end does not seem to be all that substantive.

 

[JB_Dugan]

JB Dugan

Could be that St. Augustine had experienced neither hell nor spiritual death, but I have experienced both hell and spiritual death and I can tell you that they are different and I don’t for an instant believe that I have been thru worse than Jesus, actually, I have been thru a whole lot less than Jesus went thru and I am speaking about the spiritual, not the physical.

I am sorry for your hellish experiences.
Since you have been there and back…could you tell us if Dante was accurate?

Don’t you realize that we are the Body of Christ, we are Jesus’s Church and that Jesus is the Head of His Church and Jesus is the Foundation of His Church.

Jesus’s invitation was to “Come follow Me”, not to follow His Church, not to follow a follower of His, not to follow what was written about Him but to follow Him.

I am shocked, Tom. This last part sounds like protestant ideology.

 

[JB_Dugan]

In the Free market, power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering people a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value.

With Communism and socialism, power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction.

The Free market’s tool is values; Communism’s tool is fear.

 

[Tom_Baum]

I am sorry for your hellish experiences.
Since you have been there and back…could you tell us if Dante was accurate?

I am shocked, Tom. This last part sounds like protestant ideology.

I have never read Dante, so I can not give an opinion on that, as far as my “hellish experiences”, it was, to say the least, something that I would wish on no one but I believe that it was God, Who knew that I needed to “know” some things to even attempt to do the “job” that God chose me for and that is at least one of the reasons why I have been thru some of the things that I have been thru, by the way, as I said, I experienced both hell and spiritual death and even tho they are both horrible beyond words, they are quite different, that is why I believe the “gates of the netherworld” is more accurate than just saying hell, gates not just gate.

Experiencing hell has made me realize that sheol is a good metaphor for hell.

Maybe instead of being “shocked”, you should take this up with Jesus since it was Jesus Who extended this invitation, not me.