Socialism, Christianism and humanism

Politics and Social Issues
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@morgankane01
I just feel you presuppose the fact that I don’t know communism, or that I just approach it from anti-communist secondary sources.

Again, I was raised in a communist and socialist background, so I quite know it well from the inside.

I don’t like to only read criticism of communism, so I often read and listen to communists speaking about communism (Wikirouge is one example).

For instance, that Robespierre was a communist is not me who say it, it is a political philosophy researcher with socialist-leaning who explains it (Stéphanie Roza, “Contribution française à la naissance du socialisme et du communisme”, Université Permanente, 2022). (around 30 minute)

Ensuite Babeuf est amené à déménager vers Paris et en 1793 il travaille à l’administration centrale des subsistances, qui est l’organe exécutif de la Terreur parisienne, mais en ce qui concerne le volet social, pas le volet répressif. C’est-à-dire que c’est l’administration central de la Commune qui s’occupe de réquisitionner le grain là où il est en région parisienne, de le centraliser, de le redistribuer à la population des différents quartiers.
Donc Babeuf se retrouve au cœur du dispositif qui sert à réquisitionner et redistribuer le grain.
Cette expérience est quelque chose de totalement nouveau pour lui, et aux yeux de l’Histoire. Et à cette époque là, Babeuf pense que Robespierre a en fait en tête le même projet que Lycurgue, qui va vers le collectivisme, il pense que la révolution s’achemine vers le collectivisme par l’intermédiaire de Robespierre. Et donc il est robespierriste autant qu’il est possible.

(Sorry, I don’t translate it in English for space reasons. @lausten Let me know if that poses a problem).

No. But the rhetoric communism uses, and the solutions communism proposes, make it central and instrumentalize it.

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That doesn’t make you more knowledgeable on the topic. It could even make it worse, narrowing your awareness to whatever it was you were exposed to.

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Knew that I would get this rebuttal.

I don’t agree though. There is theory and practice, and both are important to define what a movement is (we had this discussion with the hippie movement).

About communism/socialism I develop the knowledge of the theory (as illustrated in below in the post, but elsewhere in my other posts), but I also have a good knowledge of the practice, due to my personal situation.

Communism is not only in books, it is also how it is interpreted and practiced by actual people.

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In addition, having people in your own family who are communist and socialist, you will acknowledge, makes your quite inclined to learn about it (having them discuss about it regularly), including its theory, right?

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Morgan stated done facts and you responded as if it was a personal attack. Statements that you know, or have experience aren’t evidence. Just state your point of view and defend it.

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Referring to a Wikipedia article “The history of communism” is directly stating that the other doesn’t know the topic.

That’s what I did, right?

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[Robespierre as a Liberal | Cairn International Edition]

I sum up the conclusion : Robespierre was defending freedom, and a social state the guarantor of freedom.

Robespierre was not against property ownership and did not seek to eradicate it. On the other hand, he denounced the concept of freedom as something to be enjoyed by a property owner without hindrance, in other words, at the expense of another’s existence and therefore his freedom. Florence Gauthier thus included Robespierre in the tradition of natural law which, from the 12th century, had defined human freedom as reciprocity, which means that it was based on the idea that freedom only exists because it is reciprocal.

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No. Especially since I think what you say doesn’t always agree with that wiki. In no debate or discussion or dialog is it a valid argument to say, here’s an article that says you’re wrong. If make a claim, you can back it up with data or quotes from sources. Not my rule, just how it works.

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129

Ok.

I feel that when it is violent and despotic, it is not communism/socialism.

May I ask who was/is a true communist, and what was/is truely communism in your opinion?

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For me, communism is an ideal, a dream, a necessary one, but unreachable.

And many people shared it, many betrayed it.

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Ok, thank you for your answer.

If you don’t mind, I would still like to know if you have people/figures in communism that embodies this ideal, in your opinion? So somebody that developed this ideal without betraying it.

I would like to ask whether you don’t think it is dangerous to hold ideals that one knows are unreachable.

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It is not dangerous as long as you know they cannot be reached !!!

The dangerous man are either the fanatic who believes he can reach is goal, and the the cynic/hypocrite who uses the ideal for his own goals and to enhance his power

Not sure i have an answer. Except some who died trying, but they were far from perfect and may be would have betrayed.

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But don’t you think it’s playing with fire?

I am a bit astonished, because you state quite straightforwardly (and honestly) that it is just a dream, and that many people (if not all of them?) used this dream to commit terrible things, but still it doesn’t make you apparent the fact that communism (as you understand it: a dream, an ideal) is dangerous.

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This is why I take “classical liberalism/free-market theory” to be a form of realism, or naturalism.

We are just realists about human nature (humans are selfish, not only selfish, but selfish), and we aim, instead of trying (at our peril) to change this nature, to take advantage of it, in order to serve the common good.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. (Adam Smith)

There are many classical liberals/free-market theorists who are utilitarians, that is, they care for the common good.

But in a humanist manner: for the “here and now”, and rationally (not with dreams).

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Are you suggesting people shouldn’t have ideals? How would that work? At what point does a thought become an ideal? How do we police thoughts?

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136

Ok, those are important questions, and not critics for belittlement.

If we understand “ideals” as “dreams”, I think we should not have ideals.

I think we should always start from empirical material reality: if we see that people here and now are poor, we should find ways to make them less poor, if we see that X people are not treated as equally as X people, we should find ways to treat them equally, etc. And we keep extremely realistic about the nature of things: humans are selfish, animals are dangerous, and so on and so forth (we don’t start idealizing things).

So the point is to start from a concrete reality, and change it incrementally. And not the other way around (which is the case, IMO, when we hold ideals).

So we should have goals, and not ideals.

Very far far away goals, for them being far far away, can have some flavors of dreams. For instance, as I explained elsewhere, I think the goal of humanity is anarcho-capitalism, a state where people can live completely free in a prosperous society, without too much violence.

I think this is not a dream, because it starts from a reality (today, people are quite free, quite autonomous, etc., but still unable to be completely free), and aims at it incrementally (little by little, by education, by having us getting acquainted to individual responsibility with free-market, opened society, etc., we will gradually be able to live completely free). But of course, because it is so far far away, and because it would implement fully what I hold as high values (autonomy, freedom, prosperity, peace, etc.) it can have some flavors of dreams. But strictly speaking it is not, it is a goal.

So now one may ask: why morgankane’s communist dream is a dream, and not a far far away goal? Because I think it does not start from any reality, it is just a fantasy idea floating in the air, like More’s Utopia.

Of course one may disagree with that, and I am opened to see the response.

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Are these not dreams?

What difference do you do between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism?

For me anarchy and capitalism are opposite.

And even if the were not, free capitalism implies concentrations of firms and domination of all by a very few.

We are there now.

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Good question. As Jesus said, there will always be poor. And when I say “Jesus”, I mean some unnamed author from a long time ago. Doesn’t matter, the point is, there has always been wealth disparity. It used to be fairly simply, “have a few things” and “have nothing at all”, not much in the middle. That changed a handful of centuries ago, but the disparity now goes in cycles. Right now we are in a large one, and capitalism, of any kind, isn’t addressing it.

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I look in on this conversation and try to keep up, but it loses me every time. Still, this bit certainly makes sense on a universal scale, cue the hippy music:

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Why dreams? No, they are goals.

Good question… I feel the term libertarianism is sometimes used in replacement of the term “liberalism” since the socialists hijacked it. On the other hand, I feel it is used by people (like Elon Musk or Javier Millei) to refer to the Austrian school “anarcho-capitalism” (Rothbard and Hoppe).

Personally, I dislike anarcho-capitalism developed by Rothbard and Hoppe.

I like the one by David Friedman, an anti-revolutionary utilitarian.

From a naturalistic and realist point of view, hierarchy and the thirst for power is, unfortunately, a very natural thing in humans. The point is how we deal with it without causing even more harm.

And for that free-market is not a bad solution.