Friday, October 09, 2009

A Short History of Communism

My impression with respect to Marx is that he had kind of a romantic view of human nature and thought we could get rid of capitalism and learn to share and share alike. But how we get to that stage was the hard part, and one suggestion he came up with was that a "vanguard" of the Proletariat would arise, and for a limited time have a "dictatorship" to teach people to be productive without the profit motive. Of course, to do this, the vanguard would have to do their job and then voluntarily relinquish power, and they would of course have to avoid privileging themselves. In distributing in accordance with need they were not to say that they, of course, needed the lion's share. The Party, which Lenin eagerly put in the position of the vanguard, of course did neither, and the rest is history. They privileged themselves, they didn't relinquish power, and they started eating their own. This all happened over Marx's dead body, but the Marx's lack of an equivalent to the Christian's doctrine of man's sinful nature was what ruined the "nice idea" of Communism.

6 comments:

William said...

Hey. I'll help this thread get started with this link (SATIRE WARNING: not to be seen as a genuine point of view:

Marxist Gospel Parody

J said...

There may be romantic elements to marxist ideology, but Marx's writing on economics and history is quite precise, sober, and, really, empirical--whether one agrees or not, or objects to the applications of marxism. JC hisself fought the Imperial power, did he not.

Anonymous said...

I am learning about Marx's economic theory in a class of mine. My instructor is a conservative and makes it a point to refute Marx when he can.

Jesse said...

"This all happened over Marx's dead body, but the Marx's lack of an equivalent to the Christian's doctrine of man's sinful nature was what ruined the "nice idea" of Communism."

I agree, but plenty of those who accept the doctrine of the fall fail to apply it to the "nice idea" of Capitalism.

Victor Reppert said...

I would agree with that. I called Rand and Marx two sides of the same coin. I think the right vastly overrates the power of market forces to limit human iniquity. Business attempt to become monopolies, and when they do, the follow Lily Tomlin's maxim: We don't care. We don't have to.

Ned said...

Karl Marx was a Satanist. Read Richard Wurmbrandt's book "Was Karl Marx a Satanist?" Communism was to enslave mankind. It's alternate name is "Socialism".