The Philosophy Discussion Forum

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2026 6:10 pm 1848 was an interesting year in Europe.

Might I humbly suggest that trying tom understand what people in 1848 meant should be taken in the context of the struggles going on around them?

Would that it were that simple. I'd love to leave Marx in 1848. In fact, it would be better for a lot of people if Marx had never lived at all.

But people still follow him today. They still crash economies, pursuing his ideology, and they still kill people to prove that Marx's wrongness was rightness. Somebody should tell them that Marx was a mere product of 1848, and not a very nice one, and that all his ideas turned out to be wrong. I wish they knew.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2026 2:22 pm I thought Marx was only against private ownership of social institutions and was fine with personal property. That's actually what I got when I asked ChatGPT if Marx was against people having any property at all. Although, ChatGPT is probably an atheist creation and therefore not correct.

Whenever IC provides a quote, you may as well check it. In that case he chose a very narrow quote. Here's a slightly less narrow version

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/w ... o/ch02.htm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2026 8:30 pm Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

Again, you see that there were two types of property Marx said were being eliminated. "Bourgeois private property" was his concern. But he didn't even bother with "the property of the petty artisan and small peasant," since "there is no need to abolish that," since it was "already destroyed."

So what "property" is left?

So frankly, I'm not seeing what you think makes a difference here. Maybe you can explain...

Just as you should never trust IC to retain context when he quotes a source, you should expect little form his when he quotes you.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2026 10:23 pm Just as you should never trust IC to retain context when he quotes a source, you should expect little form his when he quotes you.

Going to answer the question? Or are you just gassing again?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2026 3:03 am

Are you wishing to defend the claim "A owns B" represents a MATERIAL relationship?

What a bizarre thing to suggest. It's a moral relation, obviously.

But then again, secularists have no justification for any morals, either.

Please pardon the long wait for a response. I am still deciding IF it's worth the bother to respond to position of 18th Century conservatism (think Edmund Burke)

I am correct, yes? The argument is that all things BE by Will of God, there is n "is/ought" distinction, since what is, reflects the will of, and thus is morally right. Your station in life is where you are, it is God's will, to not accept this is morally wrong, rebellion against God's will.

Like I sad, I'm not sure I want to bother discussing things with people who think like that.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 2:12 pm I am correct, yes? The argument is that all things BE by Will of God,

It's not an argument you've seen me try to make. I would say the Bible disagrees with that. There are many things that are contrary to the will of God, which He allows only in the interests of permitting our freedom to choose, which is a surpassing good. So no, the will of God is not like "Fate" or Materialist Determinism. They allow no freedom, no choice, no individuality, no personhood actually to exist, since they are totalizing controllers. God is not that. And His will is not that.

there is n[o] "is/ought" distinction,

Absolutely, there is. For instance, why would God command you to do things which, according to that thinking, you simply cannot do? How would that add up?

I'm not sure I want to bother discussing things with people who think like that.

Who would? It's silly, of course. I wouldn't blame you.

At the same time, though, since I do believe in a distinction between the divine will and human will, I do discuss with those who believe in Materialistic Determinism, Fate, the Calvinist 'god' idea, or some other such totalizing force. And ironically, they often discuss with me, as well (though if they really believed what they say, would make no sense; why discuss with an entity whose mind is preset by prior material or cosmic forces? That would be self-contradicting, for sure. You can't change a predetermined mind) because they don't actually believe their own rubbish, I find. Instead, they want to try to "change" what they also assert is "already predetermined," i.e. another's mind.

Make sense of their position if you can; I can't.

I think you've misunderstood my thinking on that. I'm not a Determinist -- not the Materialist kind, and not the religious kind, either.

Pardon me, then.

I was starting from your "A owns B" is a MORAL relation, leading to a wrong conclusion about what you were saying. If, on the t=other hand, you believe God allows to be what is NOT right to be, how are you deciding the rightness of "A owns B"? Perhaps it is an evil God is allowing?

Maybe God is a socialist.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 4:11 pm Pardon me, then.

I was starting from your "A owns B" is a MORAL relation, leading to a wrong conclusion about what you were saying.

No problem. People often misrepresent Theistic positions by supposing them to be something they never were. It's a common mistake.

If, on the t=other hand, you believe God allows to be what is NOT right to be, how are you deciding the rightness of "A owns B"?

The same way John Locke did: by reference to the purposes of God.

Perhaps it is an evil God is allowing?

God allowing something is not at all the same as God approving of something. If you look back on your own childhood, perhaps, or that of your children, if you have them, you'll recognize many moments when what the child chose to do was different from what you knew was best; but still you permitted it so that your children would have their own volition, their own identities...and even their own mistakes...but become complete people, in the process.

Nothing's very strange about all that.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 4:17 pm Maybe God is a socialist.

The early Christian communities were quasi-socialist. Jesus wasn't really a socialist per se, but if the rich listened to Jesus, there'd be less need for a call for legislative redistribution.

I edited the above. That's what I meant to write. The rich would be redistributing their own wealth voluntarily.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 6:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 4:17 pm Maybe God is a socialist.

The early Christian communities were quasi-socialist.

Actually, they weren't. That myth is based on a statement in one verse, really, that says that the early disciples "had all things in common." (Acts 2:44) The impression that this meant something "quasi-Socialist," is created by overlooking important facts.

First, such sharing of resources as the early disciples opted to practice was entirely voluntary and personal, and had no political coercion involved. There wasn't even a commandment to the effect they should do it. Secondly, everything that a disciple didn't want to share remained fully his, and he wasn't obliged to share it (Acts 5:4). Thirdly, Jesus Christ left no commandments, no procedures, no structures or authorization for a political arrangment of compelled sharing. And forthly, it was strictly for the disciples, apparently temporary, and was never extended to a political arrangment for unbelievers, far less a utopian political plan for everybody.

So in practically ever way but the sharing, it was nothing like Socialism, which is large-scale, political, enforced, aims to be permanent, and eliminates private property altogether.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 6:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 4:17 pm Maybe God is a socialist.

The early Christian communities were quasi-socialist. Jesus wasn't really a socialist per se, but if the rich listened to Jesus, there'd be less need for a call for legislative redistribution.

I edited the above. That's what I meant to write. The rich would be redistributing their own wealth voluntarily.

Yes, they would.

Given that you and I are in the top 10% of the world's wealthy, given that we have access to a computer of our own, a bit of disposable income, clothing, basic health care...all more than most of the world has...how are you doing on that?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 9:41 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 6:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 4:17 pm Maybe God is a socialist.

The early Christian communities were quasi-socialist. Jesus wasn't really a socialist per se, but if the rich listened to Jesus, there'd be less need for a call for legislative redistribution.

I edited the above. That's what I meant to write. The rich would be redistributing their own wealth voluntarily.

Yes, they would.

Given that you and I are in the top 10% of the world's wealthy, given that we have access to a computer of our own, a bit of disposable income, clothing, basic health care...all more than most of the world has...how are you doing on that?

Fine, and you? And it seems clear then that you challenge the rich to share their wealth, the one's you do not need to compare to the second and third world, those rich. And you are critical of the various new financial instruments that create wealth for the wealthy without producing any products or services. And you are critical of corporations, like the ones that bought 3/4s of Irans oil production for 20,000 pounds, because they could manipulate and threaten a weak king. These are the kinds of things you have posted about here. Or is it only the humbler rich like myself that you challenge? and only for rhetorical reasons? I'm happy to follow links. And by the way, it's a real question. You may well have done this and if you did, good for you. But I'd like to see it.

First, such sharing of resources as the early disciples opted to practice was entirely voluntary and personal, and had no political coercion involved.

So you're saying that the sharing of resources is not the will of God.

It's just something that the disciples and the early followers did.

It's probably against the will of God? Perhaps it's an evil that God permits to exist?