<p>
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by kurtz
I don't think I've ever seen a rhetorical question answered quite so well<img src="images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Grin" smilieid="3" class="inlineimg" />
|
</p>
Indeed, I think it was a bait, and letum fell for it. But hijacking threads is a general sports, so why not. So I fall next and would add to Letum that socialism often is described as a premature phase before communism, while this has been a popular view in Eastgerman schoolbooks, it is also a view others bitterly fight against, for they do want to be socialists, but not communists.
Even more important: communism is a society without social classes, socialism still accepts social classes, but wants their mutual relation based on justice and equal rights. Also, communism rejects private property, socialism does not, but accepts it.
I like Marx as an analytical observer - in that he was hard to beat. However, whule his assumptiopns on how the capital destroys itself can be seen in actio0n today, his prpojections of how communism takes over are queer, and without economical reason. Maybe no wonder for a man who was unable all his life to come along with his money, always was in debts, and lend money from others at whose costs he lived. There is a grain of truth in that this personal deficit from his biography is reflected in his ideas about communistic economical functions as well. The abswence of economic realism and ignorration of human nature is breathtaking.
I myself refuse communism and socialism, both suffer from the same irrational attitude and self-deception about human nature like capitalism and it's utopia of free, liberal market governing it itself for the better of all - it does not, but creates monopoles for the worse of communities and the better of only the few. As long as you are not the last living thing on earth, you have a social responsibility that starts to limit your freedom where you start to limit the freedom of others, and the ethical glue that keeps groups and communities together in a human context is solidarity (which I do not see as unlimited, though). These are man-made and arbitrary rules we more or less agree to follow by. the term "justice" has no content in this part od the discussion. It is not an issue of justice or an issue of some natural law to follow these rules. We follow these rules because they reflect pur ethical self-understanding (hopefully, egoists may disagree).
For these reasons i accept the need to act with socially motivated self-restraint at times, and social responsibility and investement at others, but I do not like the concept of socialism and communism. A social consciousness that separates us from the law of the strongest and waging constant war inside the jungle. that some people abuse structures born from social standards, does not falsify the principle truth in these assessmeent - it just illustrates that abuse takes place, not more and not less it shows.