Which Is Christianity More Favourable To: Socialism, Libertarianism, O

[4588686]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1292025349' post='2192044']
The only way to prevent someone from having private property is by taking it away (to a greater or lesser degree).[/QUOTE]

You can't take something that was never given.

[QUOTE]If communism is the end, not the systems we have actually seen, then one could accept it as non-authoritarian. But even as an end, one must accept that it's okay to control people to the extent that the transition toward communism demands. This threat will always exist.[/QUOTE]

Not necessairly. There could be, and I believe have been, communist thinkers who believe that there is a democratic path to the communist end. I think they are just as wrong as a Trotsky or a Lenin but the different possible paths do not change what the end result is to be.

[QUOTE]If communism were the natural state of man, we would be communists. Violence and control is the natural state of man. Resentment of those with more and the desire to attain their position is the natural state of man.
[/quote]

Wouldn't that be the fallen state of man? I don't really know what the 'natural state of man' means. They seem to use it as a historical claim. That early humans were organized along communist lines. I don't know why that makes it 'natural'. Even if the claim were true I don't see how that would make it the 'natural' state.

[Micah]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1292040202' post='2192069']
Yes. My Professor in a class that I have, whose father was a pro-Western Czech nationalist who had to flee to America because he was being hounded by the secret police, actually recommended that book. My screen name comes from a Bosnian author whose masterpiece, Death and the Dervish, used the narrative setting of 17th century Ottoman Bosnia to attack the authoritarian government in place Tito's Yugoslavia. I've also read Milan Kundera's account of the Prague Spring in The Unbearable Lightness of being.

I've been conditioned for almost all my life, by Parish Priests whose close friends were tortured to the brink of death by the government when Mao came to power, by family, and by Professors (Russian, East German, Czech and Soviet Specialists) to view the communist revolutions as morally and intellectually bankrupt.

My point is that I am not giving my personal views. As I said I view communism as a system that is neither practically implementable nor a system that one would want to see implemented even if it were viable. However it makes no sense to say that communism by definition is an authoritarian system. By definition, a communist society would not be authoritarian. An authoritarian system assumes some sort of state structure and a class system (even one as basic as a class of ruler and a class of the ruled). By definition a communist state would not be authoritarian as a communist system would, by definition, lack both a state and a class structure.

The Czech system was put in place by the Soviets. The Soviet theorists admitted that their system was not a finished communist project. The justification for the horrors of forced collectivization and industrialization was that the Russia (and the whole of the eastern block countries, although the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was seen as further along) were not yet ready for transition into communist societies and needed to be restructured by the vanguard in order the become properly positioned for their transition into utopia.

I would argue that the limits of collectivization and forced social transformation make any such successful transition impossible but that does not mean that communism analytically entails authoritarian structures. It does not. In fact exactly the opposite. The theoretical and practical shortcomings of Marxism that make such a system impossible in the real world does not change what a communist system by definition would be.
[/quote]

I appreciate what you're saying. But I do believe that it is still authoritarian. To argue that it is not authoritarian because the [i]theory[/i] remains whole without relying on coercion, this doesn't strike me as sound. The practical shortcomings of Marxism are inherent. Being, as it is, a made up system, those shortcomings are intrinsically part of it until remedied, and those shortcomings necessitate force in maintaining the system. And herein you cannot blame society or the flaws of man for failing to make the socialist utopia, because[i] [/i]the optimum system of government provides for those flaws. In fact, the very purpose of government is to regulate relationships due to those flaws. And that is a sentiment that I'm willing to bet all the great political thinkers (save maybe Marx) would have been willing to agree on. So any government which necessarily fails due to human nature is a bad system of government and, undeniably, will be authoritarian in nature. Any abstraction beyond that is just sparkles and fluff in my books.

Edited December 11, 2010 by Micah

[4588686]

You're going all over the place and conflating a number of separate issues and arguments.

[quote name='Micah' timestamp='1292045776' post='2192076']
I appreciate what you're saying. But I do believe that it is still authoritarian. To argue that it is not authoritarian because the [i]theory[/i] remains whole without relying on coercion, this doesn't strike me as sound. The practical shortcomings of Marxism are inherent. Being, as it is, a made up system, those shortcomings are intrinsically part of it until remedied, and those shortcomings necessitate force in maintaining the system.[/QUOTE]

The practical shortcomings of Marxism are inherent to Marxism. Not all communists are Marxists. Nor was all of Marxism wrong.

Every major practical attempt to establish a communist society has been undertaken by Leninist-Marxists. Communism is not inherently tied to Leninist-Marxism. The failures of Leninism to properly understand economic incentives, power allocation, et cetera does not change the definition of communism. American political elites largely believed in laissez-faire capitalism in the 19th century. America was never a purely laissez-faire society. Nor would a purely laissez-faire system be an optimal system of government in terms of either social justice or economic efficiency. That does not change what the definition of laissez-faire capitalism is or what a laissez-faire capitalist society would entail were one to ever be established.

[QUOTE][b]And herein you cannot blame society or the flaws of man for failing to make the socialist utopia[/b], because[i] [/i]the optimum system of government provides for those flaws.[/QUOTE]

Well, yes I can, because human nature is the primary reason that a socialist utopia would fail. Marxism failed because it fundamentally misunderstood human nature. It had other flaws as well but a failure to understand humans was central to the failure.

I agree that an optimal system of government would provide for the flaws of human nature but that has nothing to do with whether communism is by definition an authoritarian system.

[QUOTE]In fact, the very purpose of government is to regulate relationships due to those flaws. And that is a sentiment that I'm willing to bet all the great political thinkers (save maybe Marx) would have been willing to agree on. So any government which necessarily fails due to human nature is a bad system of government and, undeniably, will be authoritarian in nature. Any abstraction beyond that is just sparkles and fluff in my books.
[/quote]


First of all, what do you mean by 'bad system of government'? Do you mean morally bad? Whether you are talking about morally bad or bad in the sense of inefficient your point does not follow. Not all bad government structures are authoritarian. Moreover, I doubt that you believe that all authoritarian governments are bad. The divine monarchy described in Revelations is an authoritarian system. Authoritarianism is a description of the allocation of state power amongst the populace it is not necessarily a moral judgment.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Micah' timestamp='1292025647' post='2192046']
Semantics. Like you point out. It's theoretically utilitarianism in practice. Therefore the greatest good is the common good. C'mon. I posted this thread. I know the basics of socialism. [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/crazy.gif[/img] [/quote]

I was talking about conservative monarchy.

[quote]However, I disagree that it is utilitarian. Utilitarianism is an abstract philosophy. Nobody can even agree on what happiness is, let alone how to increase it. What is good for some may not be good for others, and how is any sort of governing body, even nominally egalitarian, supposed to regulate what is good for each person. The same flaw in socialism applies to utilitarianism. Unless Peter Singer has a super-calculator that can quantify happiness, the whole concept seems rather silly; like sugar lattice-work. It looks pretty. It seems architecturally sound, but nothing more than decoration. It will, even in natural conditions, dissolve.

Here, the socialist may say that, ah well we're talking about simple subsistence applications. We take some from the dominant middle class and give a little to the poor in order to iron out the difference and minimize suffering. But the socialist is actually taking away from the majority in order to give to the minority, thus it is not utilitarian.
[/quote]

I should have used the more generic term of consequentialism, not utilitarianism (which does not have to involve 'happiness.')

~Sternhauser

[Ice_nine]

benevolent dictatorship ftw

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1292040202' post='2192069']
My screen name comes from a Bosnian author whose masterpiece, Death and the Dervish, used the narrative setting of 17th century Ottoman Bosnia to attack the authoritarian government in place Tito's Yugoslavia. I've also read Milan Kundera's account of the Prague Spring in The Unbearable Lightness of being.
[/quote]

Never before knew about the origin of your screen name. Thank you.

[Teen_Catholic]

I think Conservatism, not only because of social issues, but more of the "give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach how to fish feed him for life" mentality.

[Micah]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1292106592' post='2192200']
benevolent dictatorship ftw
[/quote]

Louis XIV! A chicken in every (Catholic) pot and a horse in every (Catholic) stall.

[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hjD61YU8VYs/SqOKdHZ5B3I/AAAAAAAANJc/dsu1eO6dbcM/s320/Louis_XIV_as_Apollo_1653.jpg[/img]


Note: I am noting everyone's responses. /note