Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

How do you understand that the entire world was communist until 10,000 years ago?

The natural order of the world appears to more closely resemble capitalism via the "eat what you kill" philosophy.

I imagine you are imagining close-knit tribes that would share resources freely internally. If so, would you agree that tribe members that leech off of the tribe and don't contribute were likely expelled from the group?

We certainly all do seem to have this innate fear of being abandoned by our group, so I think it's fair to say that we're adapted to avoid this outcome.

The article itself is basically the same thing. It seems almost entirely fixed on describing Engels as a rich womanizer who secretly adored Christianity. It has a section about his life in Manchester that doesn't mention his life changing experience observing the slums and factories, and contains lines like

> “The middle orders must increasingly disappear until the world is divided into millionaires and paupers, into large landowners and poor farm labourers,” Engels wrote, in terms that might well have been appropriated by a Democratic presidential hopeful in 2020.

edit I looked up the quote, and it is Engels describing what he sees as the natural conclusion of the Industrial Revolution unless a total change of societal conditions occurred. Not something he was hoping happened or criticism of Britain enriching merchants as the article suggests.

I come from a culture that is comparatively pro-comunism, but my personal reaction to people promoting comunism is the same as when a religious person claims that their religion is based on love, understanding, and inclusion.

In the case of religion (whether or not I believe it is positive or negative) I know that there are many many dark corners that the "it is all about love" person is not talking about.

Same thing with comunism, I have known in my life people I would be slightly afraid to see holding power flying that banner and we all know what happened many times in history, and while this can be said of many ideology in my opinion the comunism cluster looks like it is trying to sweep the dust under the rug.

I am sure that there are a lot of people that are trying their best to rehabilitate comunism from the curse that Stalin and many many others have cast and I wish them the best of luck, but I do not think that their job is close to being done.

Funnily enough, there's also a whole lot of people spreading supposedly "communist" ideas who haven't read an inch of Marx and the likes. They often tend to congregate towards campuses but sometimes you even got tenured professors who seem to only output such verbiage for the social benefit they gather from it (being seen as warrior of justice). The marxist narrative seems to be a social practice more than an established theory (and I get it, it's great to have a reason to gather under the same banner, I did this for some time). On this topic, the pamphlet "Militancy: highest stage of alienation" offers some good points.

I live in France and many old classic 'marxianists' I know have come to despise the unread and uncultured new generation. Tell a young "marxist" what Das Kapital says of e.g. immigration and watch them decompose before your eyes... Anyway, no judgement here, just a personal observation.

> Of course, Engels is far from the only example of the leftist firebrand whose inherited wealth insulated him from the struggles of ordinary working people

Yeah, it's kind of to be expected: theorists (firebrand or not) are for obvious reasons disproportionately of the intelligentsia, and under capitalism (or the modern mixed economy) even the proletarian intelligentsia (much less the petit and, even moreso, haut bourgeois intelligentsia) tend to be quite well off compared to the mass of the proletariat.

People who are expending all their energy dealing with the immediate struggle that capitalism imposes on the proletariat aren't developing models of the long-term problems and solutions.