Jesus was a liberal communist

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Hello Creation Imperfect:

— To be honest, I always found it odd that Marx described his view of the perfect society and said there would be no religion in it, when Christianity should be the exact same ideal, in every way.
O- Christianity should be? Maybe, it could have been if one took Acts by itself. But other books were written. Letters by Paul which maintained the logic for a King, and so the vision of communism was downplayed to an example of what life between Christians who wished to be perfect- Monks. A dispute over what truly saves a man, his faith or deeds has been waged for generations and the view that it is simply faith which saves has down played the necessity of communism in the ordinary christian way of life.

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Mr P:
— At the macro level, let’s take the US government, it doesn’t operate as a business at all. The farmer, the airline, the train system, the military contractor, and many other industries are not independent but rather funded by the government to maintain the infrastructure of the government. This makes all of those industries secretly Nationalized.
O- False. It remains Capitalist because the Goverment is just another customer to these companies, who compete for a client, the goverment, which pays for the product; that is, issues a contract to the most suitable design.

— It is the case though that non-US firms don’t get the big contracts and that’s because the government secretly owns all of the industry that keeps it supplied and the people fed. None of it is capitalism at all and is in fact closer a kind of communism. That’s where the term “corporate welfare” came from, but if that didn’t exist then country would become destabilized very quickly, or at best have patterns of destabilization as various industries rose and fell. The important ones can’t be allowed to do that.
O- Keeping investment at home is simply good policy in that you maintain the purchasing power of the country intact and well. This is more Capitalism. Not all industries are the same, but the Capitalist wishes little or no intervention from govt. When the company’s fate affect the entire country, it is now justified for the govt to lend a hand to sustain the company, which keeps people employed, and avoids in this way an economic crisis because of unemployment and the lack of money from their salaries flowing back into the economy to keep it strong, from a Capitalist’s perspective.

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Maybe one day, but today, we have a score to settle…

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Again, I say that capitalism is the model that has truely failed, for the reasons that I’ve mentioned.

I’ve mentioned that certain brands of communism are and were mistakes that I believe were influenced by a lot of cultural factors. How could they not have been, especially before global culture became a factor. Certainly capitalism has been influenced by European individualism and middle-eastern religious concepts.

You might want to think about just who ends up in prison, mental hospitals, and just plain dead in capitalist nations. They say that you’re just as dead from a rock smashing your head as from a bullet.

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I’m not sure that you’re understanding the logic.

Imagine that you make cookies for some king. He doesn’t want you to sell them to anyone else nor tell anyone your recipe. If you do then he will order the town guard to throw you in prison for life and take your family’s assets. However, if you comply you’ll be the richest baker in the kingdom.

So, does this baker actually own his business or not?

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Detrop,

I’m not getting it.

Do you want me to assassinate Hitler for you? Do you think that I’ve met him in South America?

I haven’t, but I can ask around.

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Hello Mr Predictable:

— Imagine that you make cookies for some king. He doesn’t want you to sell them to anyone else nor tell anyone your recipe. If you do then he will order the town guard to throw you in prison for life and take your family’s assets. However, if you comply you’ll be the richest baker in the kingdom.

So, does this baker actually own his business or not?

O- Well, let’s start by the fact that we’re not just talking cookies, but , say, stealth technology. Then, yes, in such a case as the product is directly impacting the security of the nation, by enhancing it or as a treath to it in the wrong hands- outside states- then the product is, at that time, made a matter of national security and also, in some way, “nationalized”. Yet it is the product and not the company and further it is the product at that time. Once the technology becomes obsolete for all intended purposes, it can be sold worldwide, except of course to open enemies or potential ones. We’re still talking about weaponry here.
But suppose that a company that produces stealth technology also produces comercial airliners. Do you suppose, then, that the govt will nationalize this product from the same company?
Because of this distinction, yes, the baker owns his bussiness.

Yet, after all this is taken into consideration, another question comes to my mind that perhaps you can answer: Can, the same baker (with the same “cookies”), own his bussiness in a socialist/communist state? Will he not also face incarceration if he decides not to give his cookies up to the collective? …at least the other baker scenario allowed him to become very rich because of his cookies.

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Omar,

You may not realise it but the airlines of most major countries are basically owned but the government. In the US they appear to be privately owned but are in fact so heavily funded that it’s just a technical detail.

Just the other day after talking about the fact here I saw a political ad on a news site that called for the reader to demand from the US dept of transportation that a direct flight to China be created for business purposes. I don’t think that you’ll see anything like that for Wendy’s.

Since the airlines benefit from corporate welfare, then so do the companies that make their planes. It’s a circle of government cash.

Finally, the cookie baker in the communist govenrment doesn’t own his shop the people do, and the same can be said for every other industry. To own it himself would be unethical, and who wants unethical cookies?

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Mr Predictable:

— In the US they appear to be privately owned but are in fact so heavily funded that it’s just a technical detail.
O- You are brushing the distinction way too easy. A year ago Delta filed for Chapter 11. Where was that funding? As one article explains it:

“To help support its business during the Chapter 11 proceedings, Delta has obtained a commitment for $1.7 billion in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from GE Commercial Finance and Morgan Stanley as Co-Lead Arrangers. The commitment includes up to $1.4 billion of financing on an interim basis pending final approval of the full DIP financing at a later date.”
I fail to see that goverment check.

— Just the other day after talking about the fact here I saw a political ad on a news site that called for the reader to demand from the US dept of transportation that a direct flight to China be created for business purposes. I don’t think that you’ll see anything like that for Wendy’s.
O- Because Wendy’s is a burger joint, and you can always have Taco Bell, while air transport is a necessity for the US economy.

— Since the airlines benefit from corporate welfare, then so do the companies that make their planes. It’s a circle of government cash.
O- Coorporate welfare? So you are saying that since the govt has been known to “bail out” the airline industry, that this is then transferred to aircraft makers and that this is represents a circle of govt cash? Do you even consider this an exageration? I said it before, I believe, but let me say it now: The govt does not want to see it’s airline industry toss out the window thousands of workers and file for chapter 11 as a group because of consequences which said govt brought about. That is not the same as the govt owning them. See above.

— Finally, the cookie baker in the communist govenrment doesn’t own his shop the people do
O- I know, but that is the point, isn’t it. The capitalist baker may be restricted in some ways by the needs of his govt, but still does own his bakery. The communist baker does not own a bakery, or even the cookies or his own labor…the “People” own it. Yet who is the people but another form of govt. The call it “the People” and yet power is still centralized within a minority which stand as a class in a professed classless society. How unethical…

— To own it himself would be unethical, and who wants unethical cookies?
O- Unethical? By whose principles of right and wrong? Or is there an absolute criteria floating in the sky around which we gravitate?
I admire the writers of the revolution, men like Kropotin (the actual writer not our fellow poster), but after Feuerbach and Bakunin, I don’t think that ethics is the strong subject for the revolution and socialist-man. He has given up on such fantasies, like a Machiavelli. He will use the most effective means, ethical or not, to achieve an ethical result in the future, because to him, the facts are clear, the system cannot be wrong, his knowledge of science gives him insight even into the hearts of men. He knows the Capitalist-man as well as the Proletariat-man thoroughly.
When one has absolute certainties as these, why would he still cling to a dream like ethics and morality?

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Omar,

I appreciate that you’re putting a lot of time into your posts, but I believe that you’re either having trouble understanding what I’m saying, or you’re ignoring the points that I’m making for your own purposes. Please take time to do some thinking about what I’ve said and then perhaps we can discuss it at another time.

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Isn’t that so predictable…

But please do not insult my intelligence and unnecessarly flatter yours. The position you’ve taken fails not because I have not been careful with the points you have made, but because they’re wrong.

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Thanks Omar, now go have a cool drink and a sandwich, and might I suggest a cookie afterwards?

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very interesting…but i agree with mr p. on this one i think.

i just think its crazy how everyone argues communisim doesn’t work, capitalism doesn’t work, karl marx was wrong, nothing works…

pure capitalism can work - but there always will be those who oppose whats going on in their society, thus not making capitalism work.

in comes socialism - socialize a capitalist system, and the country can move on…but wait, now the people who loved the capitalist state are upset. and now the people at the bottom of society want to uprise because they feel they still aren’t getting enough.

if anybody has carefully read karl marx, he speaks of political revolutions of the classes of society almost exactly the way the world has seen it. dare i say marx liked capitalism? yes, in fact he did - he saw capitalism as a necessary step to freedom (or marxism, communism, or whatever the fuck he wanted) because it will eventually show severe inequality.

with that said, marx is counting on the fact that once oppressed people have felt and lived through their own oppression and revolt to gain political power and overthrow the capitalists, they will seek equality for all through empathy from their previous situation.

will this work? only time will tell. meanwhile, we are stuck here in a shitty country full of lies, deceit, oppression, suffering, and people who just dont give a fuck…you say greed is natural? i say prove it. read rousseau. greed come from society. if you want society, greed comes with. societies create an artificial want/need for things - greed.

read pscyholoanalytics - one natural thing for humans is the hate for human human suffering…society seems to take that one right down the shitter along with everyones morality.

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A cookie? Hopefully it will be an ethical cookie…

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Loose goose:

— i just think its crazy how everyone argues communisim doesn’t work, capitalism doesn’t work, karl marx was wrong, nothing works…
O- Work is ill defined. But, if you take our young hegelian, then communism has failed. Not because of what I say but because of what Marx said. Point to me a classless society.
I am not saying that none will ever come, it could, but the conditions do not exist. Will the conditions come in the future? I don’t now. It is possible but not probable, in my humble opinion.

— with that said, marx is counting on the fact that once oppressed people have felt and lived through their own oppression and revolt to gain political power and overthrow the capitalists, they will seek equality for all through empathy from their previous situation.
O- Such a hope dehumanizes the capitalists. Did they lack empathy? And it glorifies the oppressed. They will feel empathy? Who knows the hearts of men, capitalists or oppressed? And this ignores the possibility that perhaps the distinction between oppressed and capitalist is one of accidents, of biography, not because of essense. And this is what we see in the historical record. Once the oppressed became controllers of their own labor they did not all of the sudden become sympathetic of their comrade’s situation. But they did set out to prevent all further revolts.
No sooner had they finished their critique on the priest and his religion with their promises of Heaven, that they then made promises of a future to santify all present suffering; thus became priests themselves, but of a new religion.

—…you say greed is natural?
O- No that was imp who said it.

— i say prove it. read rousseau. greed come from society.
O- Nurture versus Nature, eh? Well, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.

— if you want society, greed comes with. societies create an artificial want/need for things - greed.
O- Read Freud’s Civilization and it’s Discontents. It proposes that our nature is indeed as imp would say, greedy; and that it is his/her (the individual) ability to repress that nature that permits a society of fellow-men/women to develop. It is just a theory, but one worth studying.

— read pscyholoanalytics - one natural thing for humans is the hate for human human suffering
O- Really? Then explain Africa.