New York City

[Immanuel Can]

Let's try something else IC. Let's look at something else. If you acknowledge a strain of "leftism" outside of Marxism, that should at least cause you to think in broader terms. I want you to look at the "True Levelers" (aka "Diggers").

World Turned Upside Down

I think that you may find that what many Conservatives fear, and for good reason, is handing to Government overall control of the human economy through models based on redistribution. And when they are also infused with Marxian religious zealousness they are inevitably destructive.

Take Chavez in Venezuela. A revolutionary program where big government did redistribute wealth (oil wealth, not wealth from taxation: i.e. not through contributions of the people) by funding schools, neighborhood improvement projects, literacy projects, while simultaneously using their positions for unreally extreme projects of corruption.

True, this is an historical pattern in Latin America and the underdeveloped world generally, but in each instance where the Marxian model was adopted (a party structure installed) the same outcome results.

Well, we agree on all that.

There's a root problem that Marxism cannot beat: in order to believe in it, you have to trust human nature absolutely. You have to think, for example, that all the "inequities" or "oppressions" that occur are not bedded in a human propensity toward evil, but merely in some sort of maladjustment of social-environmental circumstance. Rearrange that circumstance, the belief must go, and all will be well; people will no longer be greedy or exploitative, and envy, malice, laziness, covetousness, entitlement...all will vapourize instantly, and utopia will break out.

So, for example, they have to believe that if Marxist conditions are met, nobody will be elitist anymore. Politicians will willingly serve the larger interests, rather than their own. The Party will never betray us. Nobody will steal from or oppress the People. Nobody will crave power, or privilege, or prestige. We'll be able to trust our leaders in every possible way.

And equally, the workers will all become content. None will want more than his share. Nobody will slack off, or free-ride on the work of others. They will work happily, for no reward, and with no resentment. Nobody will be ambitious, or be more keen to take risks in order to obtain more rewards. Nobody will envy. Nobody will become entitled, lazy, or malicious toward co-workers. Nobody will steal from employers, whether in material terms or in taking excessive time off. Nobody will make excuses. Nobody will hateful, spiteful or sly. Nobody will sin.

At the same time, Marxists are totally keen on being vigilant for "counter-revolutionaries," or "oppressors," or "the bourgeois," or "the 10%," or "exploiters," as if the existence of such objectors to Marxism is merely a matter of chance. How these sinners came to exist in the first place, they never ask themselves; for they imagine that man is produced by his social conditions, and never think that social conditions are produced by what man is. In other words, they fail to interrogate human nature, and to see it for what it really is.

They also trust their own nature too much. To be fervent for Marxism is to be exempted from the power of human nature, and made innocent of all sin. So long as one is serving a Marxists vision, one can rob, beat, malign, accuse, dispossess and even murder anybody at all, and it will be righteous. How could it be otherwise, since it serves the highest vision of Marxism? All sins are purged away in the red bath of Marxist self-righteousness. You can always "punch" somebody and be virtuous, so long as you first call him a "Nazi." (Whether he is or not is not to their point. It stops at the mere claim that he is.)

But an idealistic society, coupled with the realities of human nature, is just another kind of exploitation. "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss," as the lyric goes. Human nature is the root problem. Social conditions are not the exclusive cause of antisocial or evil behaviour; rather, social conditions are the reflection of what human beings create out of their own natural desires. Society is a construct, not a pre-existent fact. But human nature is what it is, and cannot be eradicated by manipulating mere social conditions.

So the Marxists deliver us into the hands of the very creature than invented exploitation, inequality, entitlement, covetousness, graft, greed, spite, bitterness, laziness, selfishness and rage. So having one government, only one Party, and no opposition just means that ordinary people become helpless to protest their treatment or their state.

By contrast, a plural set of parties, each with the demand on it that it must woo public approval through voting, with term limits for all politicians, defined and limited powers of office, public accountability through the press and various watchdog agencies, division of powers among governing bodies, and so forth reflects the recognition that human nature must be managed, and that it's not invariably good. It recognizes that men can be good and trustworthy, but not all men, or not all men forever, and not most men without the support of regulatory restraint.

It's not an ideal system either -- for example, it's adversarial, which is often inconvenient, and the press is not a trustworthy watchdog always, and people do not always support wise candidates. But it at least puts some of the brakes on the worst expressions of human nature in leaders...a thing which Marxism never does.

[Immanuel Can]

funding schools, neighborhood improvement projects, literacy projects

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With what strings? Are the schools going to be "standardized," without regard for child, parent and community needs and standards? Is it going to become an indoctrination factory for the government, instead of a place of education? And these "improvement projects": will they only be done if a particular community wants them, or will they be imposed in the larger interests of the country, or in the ideological or electoral interests of the government itself? And what will these "improvements" be? In whose interest will things be "improved"?

Literacy would be good. But with what "literature"? And what will not be included? And who will make that decision? And what will this "literacy" consist of? Will it be merely the ability to read for oneself, or will it be a "literacy" in indoctrination?

The problem is that the State always has its own interests. These are not the interests of the community. So all these things can indeed become a "noooooooooo!"

[Alexis Jacobi]

funding schools, neighborhood improvement projects, literacy projects

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Latin America the “caudillos” get power by, at least, some distribution projects while they simultaneously solidify their power and their grip on power, and of course their corruption activities, by more or less buying support.

I think though that every farm or business that the Chavez government expropriated failed.

The only model that I am aware of that actually improves people’s lives and the economy is one that at least allows if it does not encourage wide scale small business enterprises to develop and for people and families to advance in the pursuit of education.

I lived in Venezuela during the time of Chavez’s first coup and I was on the streets in 1999 when he won the election. There are things about Latin America that I believe I know but I doubt you do, and principally about poverty, underdevelopment, ignorance and social apathy.

[phyllo]

Yeah, generally we are not talking about Latin America here.


So funding schools or healthcare in the USA, isn't necessarily going to turn America into a Venezuela.

But the fearmongers like to suggest that's exactly what would happen.

The "real" "right" solution is trickle down economics ... more tax breaks for the already rich.

If only Elon Musk had a trillion dollars, America would be great again.

[Alexis Jacobi]

…

Remember Don Señor Phyllo that I entered this discussion professing opposition to Mamdani and what I believe to be a hare-brained plan (of redistribution) that will likely result in negative outcomes.

How the very real problem of healthcare (unbelievable costs) gets worked out I sm agnostic. But the insurance system (“pew pew”) has severe problems.

As to education, that is another problem. Ideally it would be nice to overfund it. However there is so much laxity among the populace and lack of respect for the prospect of education and astounding bureaucratic inefficiency (I have been made to understand) that it complicates things.

The US seems to be at a critical juncture and edging toward decline and a way forward is not at all plain.

[Immanuel Can]

…
As to education, that is another problem. Ideally it would be nice to overfund it. However there is so much laxity among the populace and lack of respect for the prospect of education and astounding bureaucratic inefficiency (I have been made to understand) that it complicates things.

Worse still, the world of education has become completely rotten with Critical Theory (i.e. Race Marxism) along the lines of Paulo Freire et al., that it no longer educates...it just indoctrinates. This is largely the fault of the Faculties of Education, but the boards haven't resisted it. Children are no longer taught to thing independently, rationally or analytically, so much as they are taught to think conventionally, propagandistically, and in conformist ways. So they're less literate and less numerate, and ignorant of science and history, but taught that they are "oppressed" and must have a revolution. And they're children, so they believe it.

This is one important reason why we have a generation of entitled, raging, self-righteous, blue-haired gender-swappers, who think that the country that gave them all their unbelievable (especially on a world scale) privileges and wealth is a horrible, racist, sexist hellhole, despite the testimony of their own eyes and wallets.

If that's "education," we cannot decentralize it fast enough for the good of the country. And government has proved itself utterly incapable of providing that service in an ethical, honest, efficient and public-serving way.

So back we go to local schooling with accountability measures. Schools must answer to communities and parents, not to boards, university-ideologues, the states or the feds. Children belong to their parents, not to the State.

Amazing that one even has to point out something so obvious.

[MikeNovack]

True, this is an historical pattern in Latin America and the underdeveloped world generally, but in each instance where the Marxian model was adopted (a party structure installed) the same outcome results.

Precisely for the reason you gave (historical pattern) if you want to argue Marxism the cause you need to show many of the other countries where not Marxist fared better.

IC ---- I will ask again, how do you classify the True Levelers. What do you call their sort of ideas?

It is the MARXISTS who say they are the only true leftists and that the other "so-called-leftists" are actually part of the enemy. You are saying you are going to use the Marxist definition but WHY? Are you a Marxist? (of course not). Let's be logical. Suppose you have before you a person who self identifies as leftist/socialist/communist but insists that they are not a Marxist.
You conclude the are lying to you? << they are secretly Marxist >>
You conclude that their ideas of equality are something other than "leftist"?

When Marxists claim to be the only true socialists that's EXACTLY like Catholics claiming to be the only true Christians.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Precisely for the reason you gave (historical pattern) if you want to argue Marxism the cause you need to show many of the other countries where not Marxist fared better.

I wonder if you have read Year 501: The Conquest Continues (Noam Chomsky)? If we need an example of a realistic Marxian-influenced historical perspective that book would be a good one. His view is that “what was set in motion, continues in that motion” unless and until it is acted against. And the conquest is that motion. Like Eduardo Galeano wrote (this is a complete paraphrase) “The lion of Europe set its teeth in the flesh of the New World and established extraction routes, shaped like funnels, carting goods to the ports and then off to Europe”. Literal exploitation, plain and simple.

Another book Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Álvaro Vargas Llosa) presents not a refutation of “the facts of history” but rather a critique of a politics of resentment that is all “resistance” and “resentment” but does not encourage, or stimulate, economic development — which necessarily involves cooperation with existing economic systems and the economics of the world. They pointed out that a politics, and an economics, of resentment gets the resentful nothing: because they are not building their own economies. It tends to lead to retrenchment in poverty.

I only point this out because, after some decades in Latin America, I am not fooled by rhetoricians of the (classical) Left. They screw up everything they touch. We have an excellent example here on our forum: Comrade Promethean. He ‘corresponds’ to the “idiots” (forgive me). Now, I recognize his peculiar case is unique (his legal problems which he has been surprisingly open about: exhibitionist in fact ) are a big factor. But I note the ‘attitude’. A whole smoke-machine is fired up to explain ‘the relevance of Marxian analysis (and praxis)” and perhaps it is ‘sexy’ but it accomplishes nothing and convolutes everything.

All I can tell you is that (maybe less now than before) everyone in Latin America read Open Vein of Latin America (Galeano) which fed immense, bottomless resentment for generations. Not to mention revolutionary and guerrilla movements to topple states. It is not an untruthful essay however. Critiquing it requires care. It is an issue of emphasis.

[Immanuel Can]

IC ---- I will ask again, how do you classify the True Levelers. What do you call their sort of ideas?

Squatters. What would you call them?

You are saying you are going to use the Marxist definition but WHY?

Oh, that's easy. Because Marx is the person who the vast preponderance of Socialists treat as the patron saint and originator of their ideology. Nobody comes close to him in terms of influence on the entire Socialist cause.

If not Marx, whom would you say is more key to the core of Socialism? I'd be interested in knowing whom you would pick. Would you cite the Levelers, and then expect modern Socialists to snap to attention?

Are you a Marxist? (of course not).

Right, I'm not; because I'm sane and well-informed. I also am fully aware of what their ideology has done, and how it's never worked...and in fact, has only ever wrought massive human misery, oppression and suffering. And unlike them, I have no aspirations to use other human beings as fodder for destructive, utopian social and political projects.

Suppose you have before you a person who self identifies as leftist/socialist/communist but insists that they are not a Marxist.

Then I'd ask them the same question I ask you: whom do you cite as your key authority in interpreting your ideology?

[MikeNovack]

If not Marx, whom would you say is more key to the core of Socialism? I'd be interested in knowing whom you would pick. Would you cite the Levelers, and then expect modern Socialists to snap to attention?

Right, I'm not; because I'm sane and well-informed. I also am fully aware of what their ideology has done, and how it's never worked...and in fact, has only ever wrought massive human misery, oppression and suffering. And unlike them, I have no aspirations to use other human beings as fodder for destructive, utopian social and political projects.

Suppose you have before you a person who self identifies as leftist/socialist/communist but insists that they are not a Marxist.
Then I'd ask them the same question I ask you: whom do you cite as your key authority in interpreting your ideology?

a) Marx never claimed to be the originator of the concept. He was claiming to be "putting it on a scientific basis". Or should I put quotes on "scientific". This was mid 19th Century, and this drive to put EVERYTHING on a scientific basis in vogue. Do not underestimate the power of "in vogue". For example, the Communist Party (upper case) organized under the principle of "democratic centralism". But do not make the mistake of attributing "democratic centralism" to the Communist Party. At about the same time The Farm Bureau (conservative) was organized. It ALSO organized under "democratic centralism" << their manual gives an excellent explanation/justification of the theory of why a voluntary organization claiming to be democratic should follow this rule >>

b) You can by all means consider socialist, communists, etc. mistaken and wrongheaded. But not lacking in sanity. You REALLY don't want to be calling people "insane" for having bizarre beliefs << you aren't seeing me call you insane for yours >>

c) Cite as authority? MORALITY. Oh right, you don't think secularists can have morality. Look, you label the True Levelers as "squatters". Are you denying their religion? << I chose The True Levelers instead of say contemporary Catholic Workers precisely because THEIR "brand" of Christianity more closely related to yours >> It is because of your claims to go by the word of God that I chose them for you to explain. If you were able to ask them what was their authority they would have answered "God". Seriously, READ their writings. That these are accessible is why I asked that you explain them.

PS -- please, yes of course I know the problem of "democratic socialism", the critical corrective function that is lacking. I am after all an anarchist.

[Immanuel Can]

If not Marx, whom would you say is more key to the core of Socialism? I'd be interested in knowing whom you would pick. Would you cite the Levelers, and then expect modern Socialists to snap to attention?

Right, I'm not; because I'm sane and well-informed. I also am fully aware of what their ideology has done, and how it's never worked...and in fact, has only ever wrought massive human misery, oppression and suffering. And unlike them, I have no aspirations to use other human beings as fodder for destructive, utopian social and political projects.

Suppose you have before you a person who self identifies as leftist/socialist/communist but insists that they are not a Marxist.
Then I'd ask them the same question I ask you: whom do you cite as your key authority in interpreting your ideology?

He was claiming to be "putting it on a scientific basis".

Yeah. How funny is that! False advertising, for sure. But what's the answer to my question?

b) You can by all means consider socialist, communists, etc. mistaken and wrongheaded. But not lacking in sanity.

Ideological possession is an extreme mental disease. It can make otherwise normal people do insane things, such as burning cities and feeling justified in theft, or viewing everybody who disagrees with them as evil (a racist, say). So yeah, I'll stick by "insane."

c) Cite as authority? MORALITY. Oh right, you don't think secularists can have morality.

No, I never said that. You won't find I've said it even once, in fact.

I have always said they can HAVE morality, because they can borrow from others moral precepts they can't explain, of course; I've said they can never JUSTIFY having any by way of secularism. And I've never yet found even one secularist who could tell me one moral precept that secularism requires of them. So unless you can, then this conversation would be one more data point confirming the same.

Look, you label the True Levelers as "squatters".

Actually, it's an accurate description, not a label. They squatted on land they didn't own, apparently.

THEIR "brand" of Christianity more closely related to yours

"Closer" than what? I certainly wouldn't assume that. What did you have in mind, when you say "closer"?

But you still never answered my question: if you quoted one source to explain Socialism, but it's not Marx and Engels, who would it be?

[Age]

"But noble Promethean waits on The Revolution"

My final position is as follows. I am not a capitalist or a socialist or a revolutionary, but as a philosopher and theorist,

What even is a 'philosopher', to you, exactly?

And, what are some of 'your theories', exactly?

Also, why even 'theorize' when the 'actual Truth' is, here, before you, to 'look at', and 'see'?

i recommend Marxism to the world.

Which version of so-called "marxism" are you talking about and referring to, here, exactly?

The contradiction is that this would exclude myself since my circumstances (legal) would be the same (I'm guessing), so i would not acknowledge that kind of State either.

It comes down to this. If a fellow were to ask me, "Hey, what is the best way you think me and those other folks over there could get along well for a very long time in a material world" i would hand him the communist manifesto and text him a couple Professor Wolff youtube links.

Still, i am a paradox somewhere between an egoist anarchist and a Marxist, two diametrically opposed positions.

Once more, what can be clearly seen, here, is 'these people' actually imagine and believe that 'others' understand the personal meanings and definitions that 'these people' give to words, without ever explaining what their own personal meanings and definitions even are.

I do not work for anyone or employ anyone. I'm like an eighth century peripatetic craftsman mechant bard philosopher or something. Problem is i couldn't be a categorical imperative, and the world wouldn't work if everyone did what i do. So i gotta come up with a plan where everyone works but not for a private party other than themself.

The only 'work' absolutely any one 'should', or 'ought to', be doing is just 'working with' one another together, as One, for the same goal. Which is just to live in peace and harmony, together, as One.

Otherwise you 'are', and would be', 'working against' each other, instead.

Categorically, you end up at turbo-Randian anarcho-capitalism or Marxism. The only other alternative is a fake-ass nanny state capitalism, and i don't like fake-ass nanny state stuff.

Why is 'the obvious' so 'over-looked'?

[Walker]

That just goes to show that healthcare isn't all about the bucks but also about personal responsibility, which is why you can lead a horse to water but it might not swim.

[accelafine]

Money-obsessed arseholes like Walker and IC think that antibiotics and cancer treatments should be witheld from people (including children) who can't afford to pay the exhorbitant amount that big pharma charges for them. This is their idea of being 'good kristians'. Medical breakthroughs belong to every human. Are they seriously suggesting that a cancer cure should only be accessible to the rich? If anything it's the mega rich who should be prohibited access to medical treatments. Humankind would undoubtedly be a lot better off for it.

[Age]

This world is a sick joke. Your God is a sick joke.

It is helpful to understand the incarnation of Jesus in light of the (various) incarnations of Vishnu. Try to think of it like this: Just as you recognize and interpret the world as “sick” and as also being a “sick joke”

If I recall Correctly, "Gary childress" recognized and interpreted "immanuel can's" 'God' as being a 'sick joke', and not 'the world', itself, as being a 'sick joke'.

(as if behind the scenes the creator laughs and exults) so too did the Ancient Rishis thousands and thousands of years ago.

The world, for us, for any being that becomes aware, presents us with painful and tragic realizations about circumstances and in every instance outcomes in life here.

Once again, the narrowedness and closed offness of 'the people' is clearly apparent.

What distresses the mind is that tragedy and pain are intermingled with awesome beauty and, for us often, experiences of genuine joyfulness.

But, absolutely nothing distresses the Mind, at all.

And then — the hammer drops. The trap springs. All on a sudden it can all turn ugly.

From a very real perspective — consider this picture — man wanders in a tragic world of chaos and pain.

But, there is no actual so-called 'tragic world of chaos and pain. Except, of course, in some of you older human beings thinking, and/or believing.

However, it is knowledge that man uses to mitigate his circumstances. Knowledge — vidya — is presented as having many levels. So how to create fire is one level (a metaphor of all science-knowledge). But then there are other levels of knowledge generally described as ‘wisdom’. And within the traditions of wisdom there is (said to be) levels of knowledge about “the soul” and the soul’s relationship to Greater Being or to the Supreme Being.

Now, the notion or the emblem that Christianity attempts to present is that of the descent of the Divine Intelligence taking a form within the “material entanglement”. I.e. the material world. The world that, frankly, you are in stark disagreement with. That is to say that your personality, your soul, rebels against not only The World but moreover the conditions you, and man, face.

Christianity, I think we must say, is ‘contaminated’ by its profound association with the Hebrew mythos. This is the root of an ‘imperious’ ideology that is embodied in the image of Yahweh. We must face the fact: Whatever that imago is, it began as a storm god and a warrior god of a specific desert people in power-struggles with neighbors. It was not ever a “universal picture” of the salvific idealization. It is obvious, is it not? that today as these crazy battles go on all around us (all surrounding The Holy Land) that we see playing out not the higher ideation of a Vishnu-like incarnation spreading knowledge about peacefulness or self-realization, but in truth diabolical energies of a very low order. (Horrifyingly it is easy to note this when, for example, we listen to a Christian Zionist preacher calling out to “God” for a missile to destroy the Dome of the Rock so that “Jesus will return” to establish his Kingdom of Peace.)

It is called “madness” as I am sure you recognize.

Is there or is there not knowledge — vidya — that both clarifies what this existence is and how it is that we are here within “the material entanglement”, and then how we are to act in the face of our condition?

Yes, there is.

There is a way to understand Immanuel’s obsession with an imperfect, indeed a misleading, picture of a divine power that presents salvific knowledge. There is a way to see through his outmoded apologetics and, if you will, to clarify it. It’s tough because “Immanuel” and a hundred million others cut by the same mold will fight tooth and claw to keep you from this knowledge (or evolution of perspective), and (IMHO) reveal the diabolical energy in misunderstood and misappropriated ideas. Still though it can be done.

Why do you not blame "your" 'self' for fighting, so-called, 'tooth and claw' to keep 'you' from the actual True, and Right, knowledge, in Life?

Or, do 'you' believe that 'you' have not been fooled, and deceived, "your" 'self', and/or are not fooling, and deceiving, "your" 'self'?