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Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

isi.org

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Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#81

Post by CryptoPunk »

anoncake wrote: post #53
CryptoPunk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, private property, which is a capitalist institution, has existed since prehistoric times, probably from even since before Homo Sapiens arose. Proto-property-rights are also observed in the Animal Kingdom, with principles like "first possession", where the first animal to the kill is less likely to give up the kill, and the second animal more likely to give it up, often governing animal interactions. In fact, game…

What you are describing is not private property, but personal property.

Just a smaller scale version of private property, that is exactly what you would expect with smaller-scale society, and the form you would expect modern private property's pre-historic progenitor to take, before codes of law, and the scaling up of production with agricultural and then industrial-scale capital.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#82

Post by artificialLimbs »

janosett wrote: post #30
xrisk wrote: post #19

As usual, I am not surprised to see this thread devolve into name calling and strawmanish idealist arguments.

While I would love quality discussion about politically charged issues like this, it seems like we can't manage to stay respectful. I think it might just be natural to follow suit with the divisive conversations happening in other forums. What draws me to HN are the thoughtful, genuine discussions about topics around technology, science, and business. While not perfect, it often seems to dodge the political divisiven…

People who have informed themselves about communism and the reasons against its tenants are violently opposed to communism, and rightfully so imo.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#83

Post by artificialLimbs »

telaelit wrote: post #28

If you haven’t already read The Communist Manifesto I highly recommend that you do, it’s super short and easy to understand. Even if you’re an anti-communist you should read it to get a better understanding of what communism is. There has been so much anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda for decades in the US that many people don’t even know the first thing about communism and socialism and will just shut the…

Some people are violently opposed to communism/socialism because they were taught that was the right way. This is ideology. Others, myself included, who have educated ourselves about the consequences of communism/socialism are violently opposed to it because we hold the consequences of communism/socialism to be of more significance than its high minded ideas about what is 'good'.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#84

Post by dang »

dalbasal wrote: post #71

When Tom Morello (RATM & Audioslave guitarist) is interviewed the tension between rich rockstar and firebrand anarchist usually provokes some sort of political exchange that ends in " if you're such a communist, why do you X? " To which, he normally responds " I live in capitalist... when the revolution comes..., I'll take part in however music works then. " I've seen him have this dialogue several times. My guess is…

You can look at it as hypocrisy but in the end I have found this concept not so useful. It's more interesting to look at it as contradictions, complexity, and so on.

Hypocrisy is an interesting concept because of the self-contradiction in it. It's a word that is only ever applied to others, yet there is not one of us who isn't a hypocrite. Therefore the word is an instance of itself. The day I realized this, indignation about hypocrisy vanished for me—and it used to bug me a lot.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#85

Post by dang »

dluan wrote: post #70

The masthead of this site starts with: > Filling the Void Left by Modern Higher Education. Too many college students feel isolated or attacked for questioning progressive orthodoxy and the ever-narrowing range of debate on campus. Love to see anti intellectualism spread around HN, and again not surprised.

Hmm. When I looked at the previous HN articles from this site I found https://isi.org/modern-age/prophets-of-the-modern/, which struck me as the opposite of anti-intellectual. It's downright abstruse.

Edit: oh, I see, this publication is basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Age_(periodical), which was founded by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Kirk. This is a well-known strain of highbrow paleoconservative intellectualism in the US. It's fine not to like it, of course, but anti-intellectual it definitely is not.

From an HN point of view, we care about article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... That's unavoidable on the internet, where the good stuff has to be picked out of rivers of bad and mediocre stuff. And actually if a good article comes from a bad source, that kind of makes it more interesting.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#86

Post by lefrenchy »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #83
telaelit wrote: post #28

If you haven’t already read The Communist Manifesto I highly recommend that you do, it’s super short and easy to understand. Even if you’re an anti-communist you should read it to get a better understanding of what communism is. There has been so much anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda for decades in the US that many people don’t even know the first thing about communism and socialism and will just shut the…

Some people are violently opposed to communism/socialism because they were taught that was the right way. This is ideology. Others, myself included, who have educated ourselves about the consequences of communism/socialism are violently opposed to it because we hold the consequences of communism/socialism to be of more significance than its high minded ideas about what is 'good'.

That is still ideological. You are choosing capitalism despite it’s incongruities, excesses, and consequences, because you find more significance in what it sees as ‘good’.

Pretending to be non-ideological is disingenuous.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#87

Post by rogue7 »

dalbasal wrote: post #74
rogue7 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They conceded nothing and admitted no external influences In the case of Marx this is inaccurate. Indeed, in Das Kapital he develops the Labor theory of value [0] from earlier works of David Ricardo and ... Adam Smith. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value

Absolutely. I think you have me backwards. Marx's economics are a pretty straightforward response to Ricardo. He himself mostly alluded to Ricardo as "Bourgeois intellectuals," avoiding even naming him.

I now understand what you meant. However with a quick search, you can find 14 references to Ricardo (granted, in the footnotes) just in Capital, part one, chapter one [0].

I think it's telling how most of the Smith and Ricardo followers celebrate how prescient they were, excluding the labor theory of value when they embrace marginalism [1] instead. I guess it must be more convenient for them.

[0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics#Margina...

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#88

Post by anoncake »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #81
anoncake wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing is not private property, but personal property.

Just a smaller scale version of private property, that is exactly what you would expect with smaller-scale society, and the form you would expect modern private property's pre-historic progenitor to take, before codes of law, and the scaling up of production with agricultural and then industrial-scale capital.

Which of your examples do you think is private property?

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#89

Post by joe_the_user »

rbanffy wrote: post #69
joe_the_user wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully to the moderators. I'm surprised this has decent comments given it is indeed an extraordinarily biased source and engages flagrant, extreme attacks on anything on the left. Seriously.

I think that it serves to show how used the left-leaning crowd is to such baseless attacks and how patient they are. As far as biased sources go, this one offers an interesting view and brings up the point made elsewhere, that the people who struggle daily to put food on the table may not have the bandwidth to think about global solutions to systemic problems. Also, it prompts me to remind people that neither Engels…

Also, it prompts me to remind people that neither Engels nor Marx told anyone they should sell all their material possessions and give to the poor. That would be Jesus and it's surprising that they are so often confused.

Yep, that's a good point.

But ... the thing about this, the article raises things to think about in the reader. But the fact selection and the approach is essentially a standard hit piece. I'm pretty sure the OP doesn't know precisely the point you raise, that Marx and Engels didn't pretend to be Jesus. And the author is writing to other assuming that showing Engels as Hedonist will sink his appeal.

But yes, the actual facts are more interesting than OP intends. But, as someone who other contexts moderates discussion, I think this has the problem of setting a bad example. People start to ask: "If this 100% bad faith article results in good discussion, why can't we do more of it? Why can't I do it? Now everything from Turning Point USA and such is OK to post" etc.

Which is to say, you've gotten some benefits and you've paid some costs. The benefits are some OK but not extraordinary discussions of Marx and Engels, the costs are confusing your moderation policy. Even though I'm sympathetic to generally positive discussion of Engels, I don't think this is worth the cost. Just my rough calculation.

Re: Engels: The Communist as Hedonist

#90

Post by nec4b »

Mind experiment: In the last paragraph of dang's top post replace "communism" witch "nazism" and "Engels" and "Marx" with "Hitler" and "Mussolini". How would you feel about it?

There are probably millions of people in the USA who barely escaped with their lives from vile communist regimes and yet the idea of communism is still entertained as some misunderstood noble thing. Until there will be "Nuremberg trials" equivalent for communism such ideas will unfortunately continue to propagate.

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