It’s either this fairy tale, or its flip side, the myth that ‘private vices’ somehow add up to ‘public virtues’.
Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.
The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.
I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.
Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.
Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)
It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.
We will feed you if you believe in our religion and work our fields, your true reward for your good works and piety will wait for you in heaven.
It’s like your pension plan in the sky.
When you feed the poor, you’re called a Saint
When you ask why the poor have no food, you’re called a communist.
I work a couple food service jobs and the waste brings a tear to my eye. And that’s just what makes it to the restaurant. Oh this tomato doesn’t look perfect? Throw it away.
Perfect tomato’s for sale: $10 each.
Then the pile of perfect tomatos rot as hungry eyes look upon it from outside the store. (They aren’t allowed inside, the vagrants might steal!) Rotten like the hearts of those who gatekeep necessities for profit and power.
That just Is word for word the peak of "grapes of wrath "
“The oranges needed to be dumped in kerosene and burned. It is cheaper than dumping them in the river and making sure the poor don’t take them… why? All for the sake of profit”
We are also born unable to care for ourselves. Or speak. Or…
Kids don’t want to work these days
I’m sure it’s the kids fault
Rents late you lazy toddler!
You shouldn’t even attempt to figure out their logic. People will say and do anything for power. They don’t believe what they say. It’s just an excuse to do what they want to you and your people.
They will find a way to make their twisted dreams your reality, even if they have to manufacture it.
From one extreme to another I see ml is still doing the stupid. There are things between ancapism and communism and they are lovely
What on Earth are you talking about?
Edit: oh lmao it’s the Zionist landlady
He means neoliberal conservatism with social demicrat characteristics
Ah, the fascist route.
Communism Killed 100 Zillion People
Now the massive population of China and Venezuela and Vietnam and Cuba and California are going to take over the world
No, they aren’t doing Real Communism. That’s just Authoritarian State Capitalism.
Yes, we have to fight them. That’s why we need the western governments to spend trillions of dollars on private military services.
We have to kill all 100 Zillion of them. Because they’ve been infected with the Mind Virus of Communism.
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not. There are too many people out there that sound just like this.
It’s sarcasm.
The zillion part definitely made me lean towards sarcasm, but I guess I can never be too sure with all the brainrot and bots out there. The Red Scare still lingers.
The Red Scare never died, and the Cold War never ended.
I know I would be attacked by entire fediverse, but I want to say that charity also has egoism as backing cause. People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don’t.
Also don’t presume that I am a capitalist, before you decide to attack me.
People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don’t.
People want their labor to be recognized. But you don’t need to wield an Elon Musk level of deranged dictatorial financial clout in order to experience self-actualization for your efforts.
Pride in your work also comes with a degree of autonomy and creative freedom. A draconian profit driven privatized capitalist restaurant or clinic or school isn’t going to care whether the staff feed or heal or educate anymore. All they care about is driving up profits. By contrast, a (good) chef cares that people like the food. They care about evolving their craft. They care about the experience they are producing, even when that may mean the dish doesn’t make someone else money.
There’s a balance to be struck between enterprises with scarce resources and people with a desire to feel accomplished in their craft.
But you can strike that balance with good administrative leadership. The reward for a day’s work can be a beautiful place to live and a happy neighborhood, rather than a single incredibly rich guy hosting an award show for his pet favorites and using these token elites as an excuse to make the rest of his staff live in poverty.
Donating to charities often gives tax benefits.
Kind of. I agree partly. My mother used to knit winter clothes, for free, for some institutions and she wasn’t the one delivering them. They never knew who she was, and she didn’t bother.
Your mother was kind and intelligent enough to get satisfaction from the knowledge that she made someone’s winter a bit more bearable. We should all strive to be like your mother.
I remember looking at charity jobs when I was graduating with my humanities degree before I got into tech. Revealingly, the alumi I was speaking to who worked in the sector said something like, “At it’s core you need to remember that working for a charity is essentially a sales job.”
Made me nope tf out of there lol.
I agree with you. If I have anything to give when I see someone in need, I give it to them. Not because I have some grand sense of purpose or anything. I do it because it makes me feel warm inside, it puts me in a better mood for the whole day knowing that someone else’s life is now a little easier because of me. Does that change the fact that I’ve made someone’s life a little easier?
I mean, you’re not wrong, but your point is also kinda meaningless. Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you, even if that something is just feeling good about yourself. If there was truly nothing in it for you, then why would you do it?
But that misses the point of the “people are inherently selfish” vs “people are inherently generous” discussion, because it’s not actually about whether people do things only for themselves at the most literal level, instead it’s about whether people inherently get something out of doing things for others without external motivation. So your point works the same on both sides of the argument.
Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you,
No, sometimes you do things because you care about other people and want to help them. That you also probably feel better about yourself than you would if you did shitty things all day doesn’t mean that feeling is the only and single motivation.
Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions. At its very core, you wanting to help people you care about comes from wanting to create positive emotions in yourself or avoiding negative ones (possibly in the future, it doesn’t have to be an immediate effect). If those emotions weren’t there, you wouldn’t actually care and thus not do it.
Edit to clarify: I’m not being cynical or pessimistic here, or implying that this means that everyone is egotistical because of this. The point I was trying to make is that defining egotism vs. Altruism is a little bit more complex than just looking at whether there’s something in it for the acting person. We actually need to look at what’s in it for the acting person.
Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions.
That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world. How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself? Dying is a pretty negative thing to experience and there will be no more positive emotions for you after that. I guess this idea that caring is in its essence transactional feels profound to people because we’re so ingrained with capitalist ideology… but it’s a lot more complex and multifaceted than that.
That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world.
Exactly, that’s my point.
How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself?
In this case it would be about reducing negative emotions, choosing the lesser of two evils. Losing a loved one and/or having to live with the knowledge that you could have saved them but chose not to can inflict massive emotional pain, potentially for the rest of your life. Dying yourself instead might seem outright attractive in comparison.
this idea that caring is in its essence transactional
That’s not actually how I’m seeing it, and I also don’t think it’s a super profound insight or something. It’s just a super technical way of viewing the topic of motivation, and while it’s an interesting thought experiment, it’s mostly useless.
“People help other people because it makes them feel good”. I’d say the meaning is “people help others in need so they can feel good”. Is there a problem with this? If someone in need of help receive that help, they will feel alleviated, while people giving help will feel good. I don’t know, it sounds great to me. Even if the helping ones wouldn’t feel a thing, like robots, it would be still great, in my book, because someone in need is being attended.
Now, if the helping ones feel bad for helping, and the others feel good, then I can see an issue. The only problem I could see is to be angry because there are people in need to start with.
We hear that argument a lot, and though some people’s charity may be motivated purely by egoism I don’t think it applies to the majority at all. The argument assumes that if doing something makes you feel good, then that feeling must be the sole motivation for that action, which is dubious. And if we follow this logic to its natural conclusion, every action that does not make you feel bad is egoistic, and the concept becomes completely meaningless. Saving a child from falling down a cliff? Egoistic! Intervening when someone is treated unfairly? Egoistic! Giving up your chair for an elderly person on a crowded bus? Egoistic!
Let’s take this last (admittedly small, everyday, non-dramatic) example. Sure, you could give up your seat purely because you want to look like a good person to others (although it’s doubtful anyone would even notice). It’s also possible to experience this feeling called empathy, to see an elderly person struggling to keep their balance while standing up and to want to alleviate that particular suffering. Everyone else is sitting down looking at their phones, so there’s no community pressure to speak of. No one would call you out if you just pretended not to notice. And the discomfort from standing up on a really crowded bus on a bumpy road could easily outweigh that little buzz you get from doing good.
I’ll go even further; it’s even possible, in a scenario like this, to not even think about how it’s going to make you feel or your self-image or whatever. You just want to help someone else because it’s in your power to do so. If this isn’t an example of not being egoistic, what would be? What would be the opposite of egoism? To act completely dispassionately?
And what about someone sacrificing their own life to save another? Striving to do good in the world does feel better, yes, but empathy is also a burden. Still, there are genuinely good people out there, that do good deeds and do not take any credit for it, even do it anonymously. And I can tell you from experience, not all of them walk around on clouds feeling like saints. Some of them even experience crippling guilt because they feel they do not do enough. How is that egoism?
that’s a very grim way of looking at goodness. Of course doing things you believe are making a positive change makes you feel good, of course helping your community makes you feel good, and it does feel nice to be recognised and known as a good person.
It’s a strange ambient idea in our society, that to be truly good you must suffer, and never find joy in the good things you do. Not to turn conspiratorial, but to me it sounds like a cope from actually selfish people who look at people who do nice things and think to themselves “they’re only doing it to be popular and feel good about themselves, why else would anyone do anything”
Egoism isn’t a positive or negative word. It is a word that describes human behaviour, and anyone who declares it to be positive or negative would be wrong. Egoism is something that makes you happy, or gives you a feeling of gain or happiness.
This isn’t the standard definition of egoism, but I like to think about it this way.
The very existence of society and the fact that we aren’t blindly killing eachother for resources proves that civilization is not based on humanities animalistic instincts. Therefore the claim that humans cannot overcome their own base instincts (as claimed by many Liberals) would imply that we are no morally or intellectually superior to animals.
Even animals are not based on such “animalistic instinct”, most of animals cooperate on some level.
Exactly lol, look at ants their society is thousands times more organized than our and they don’t even have brains. To be fair they only focus on basic needs like food and reproduction we do a lot more things
Indeed, all intelligent creatures are capable of acting beyond what is strictly needed for survival.
Cooperation is needed for survival in many case, or at least improve the odds.
My take on this is that the greatness in humanity comes from being a bunch of egoistic assholes capable of doing the right thing and help each other.
A selfless person doing something selfless is normal. A egoist doing something egoistic is normal. An egoist doing something altruistic is what raises us from pure instinct to humanity.
You can see it all play out in a microcosm on reality shows like Survivor. People cooperate and compete. They cooperate TO compete. They cooperate when it benefits them the most, and betray each other when they think they’re most likely to get away with it. Some people are more trustworthy than others. Some are extremely likely to betray, but then they struggle to benefit from cooperation.
Groups of people engaged in a kind of eusocial super cooperation are very rare and tend to be fairly small. They also tend to act the most like a clique; being highly discriminatory against the outgroup.
Communist logix
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
Abolishing private property isn’t about equalizing power, necessarily. It’s to end Capitalist production, which is necessarily exploitative and results in Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism. Abolishing Private Property allows us to produce based on needs, not profits for a few individuals.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
Communists advocate for the abolition of classes.
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
That’s a pretty terrible misreading of Communist structures. Communists advocate for abolition of the State, via creating a government as an “administration of things,” similar to how the Post Office functions, but for all of production. The goal of protecting the revolution is done by the Proletariat, the most advanced among them making up the Vanguard. There isn’t a separate “class.”
I gotta say, communists are great at branding lol
You say it’s the goal of the proletariat to protect the revolution, but why would they? Each proletariat would benefit from the revolution’s failure- they could live better lives as the bourgeois. You talk about the proletariat like they are some monolithic entity, with a single mind and goal. You talk big about helping the individual, but cannot see beyond their class. The proletariat is a person, with needs, desires and opinions. What father would hold the abstract ideals of the “revolution” over the life of his sick daughter? Any father I know would do anything for the safety of his children, even hoard life-saving medicine from others.
You say it’s the goal of the proletariat to protect the revolution, but why would they? Each proletariat would benefit from the revolution’s failure- they could live better lives as the bourgeois
This is absurd. That’s like saying the French Revolution should’ve been sabotaged because the Proletariat would have fared better as nobility.
You talk about the proletariat like they are some monolithic entity, with a single mind and goal.
No, I do not. I speak of the Proletariat as a class, which shares class interests and class dynamics, ie they are all workers who create the value exploited from them.
The proletariat is a person, with needs, desires and opinions. What father would hold the abstract ideals of the “revolution” over the life of his sick daughter?
What is this wild tangent? Why do you think a father would side against his and his daughters interests and continue to live in sqaulor? Do you think revolution is an aesthetic choice, and not a practical conclusion?
Any father I know would do anything for the safety of his children, even hoard life-saving medicine from others.
Revolution is when no medicine for sick daughters
Ok. I’m getting tired. You bested me this round. Have a nice day.
Having been the one who brought it up, (and since I got here first) I guess I will super duper reluctantly be the enforcer. I super don’t want to y’all guys! But this is for the good of the collective!
“The good of the people” is a noble enough goal. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these movements are people who deliberately seek power, and for the most part, those people are vain greedy, brutal, a-holes.
People = problem
people in charge of these movements are people who deliberately seek power
“Don’t trust anyone who tells you what to do”
“Okay, I’m not going to trust you.”
“No, you idiot! That’s not what I meant!”
So, anyway, let’s talk about why the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War got absolutely rolled by the well organized and disciplined Fascists. Then maybe pop over to Russia, China, Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam, and consider why Marxism have had a better record on self defense.
the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War got absolutely
rolledbetrayed by the well organized and disciplinedFascistsCommunistsFTFY
Hate to be betrayed by not having enough tanks sent to me. Maybe if the Spanish anarchists had all the military equipment they wanted, they would have won, but the war-torn Russians couldn’t afford to waste equipment on the shittily organized anarchists, so now I’m going to whinge about it for a century as though that makes them equivalent to (or worse than) the fascists who actually killed them!
The Spanish Civil War wasn’t anarchists vs fascists. There was a popular front that included anarchists, socialists, communists, liberals. The USSR-associated groups made a grab for power over the anarchist factions, which can’t have helped the war effort.
Please ignore the history of Anarchists fighting the Communists, it simply must have been the dirty Marxists betraying the noble Anarchists.
Yeah, and eating hot dogs also goes against human nature. That shit didn’t exist in 3,500 BCE.
are you really saying emulsified rat lips, chicken trimmings, porkins, and beef slurry didn’t exist in 3500 BCE?
Not in such a convenient package!
People used to use almost all parts of animals. Being able to be super picky is more modern extravagance and it’s good the parts are still used. Unnecessary waste otherwise
People are neither inherently selfish or inherently generous. People are survivors regardless of what is necessary to do so. A human will give the shirt off his back to his neighbor but will spite a customer service worker because they’re in a bad mood or feel slighted. Your tribe is your most important social aspect
But it is that selfishness that communism can’t control for and that capitalism only dampens the effect of. You need a system that counteracts those selfish tendencies in order to reach lasting stability.
I agree with this. Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources. Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards. Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.
Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources
Communists advocate for immediate recall elections, and units forming syndicates that send delegates. Communism is designed against corruption.
Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards
Capitalism isn’t honest nor deceitful, it’s just a Mode of Production. Capitalism doesn’t have a face or a will.
Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.
What’s considered natural depends on the Material Conditions, ie the Mode of Production. Capitalism reinforces greed by rewarding it systematically, Communism and Socialism do not.
‘A system that counteracts those selfish tendencies’ you mean a system in which:
- housing is not controlled by companies with no moral incentive to keep them liveable and affordable?
- people don’t learn from a young age that their value is directly connected to their willingness to fuck people over for money?
- there is no monetary incentive to create artificial deficits in essential goods like housing and food?
- the whole economy is not based on ‘cheap labour’ and the illegal extraction of minerals from other countries?
In what way does capitalism “dampen” selfishness?
It reserves selfishness for a handful of weirdos, and allows every worker to be selfless.
it rewards it in my view. it conditions us to be selfish
In that it makes it open. In capitalism, ot is assumed that everyone is a selfish actor. Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’. And because they tend to be in positions of power, you will end up in the Gulag.
Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’.
Where on Earth did you get this idea?
What have you read or where did you get your understanding from?
the initial argument only applies to Utopian Socialism anyway – fighting for your personal interest is exactly the point of communism, destroying all the enemies of the working class
Depends on the definition. Kropotkin, who self identified as anarcho communist, wrote a scientific book literally called Mutual Aid
You’re misinterpreting Scientific vs Utopian Socialism. Kropotkin was a Utopian, not a Marxist. Marxists use Scientific Socialism to refer to the creation of Socialist Society as an evolution upon Capitalist society, whereas Utopianism refers to people “spontaneously” adopting a system after being convinced of it, ie waiting on someone to magically think of a perfect society and directly building it, instead of looking at Socialism as another stage in human development.
I suggest reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Am I? I never called him a Marxist because he clearly wasn’t. He was an anarcho communist (before bolsheviks burned the term communism).
Still he didn’t claim that it will happen spontaneously. Your dichotomy is wrong. He may not have been a Scientific Socialist in the Marxist Tradition, still his theory was scientific and revolutionary. Historical Materialism isn’t the only path to think scientifically about history and socialism. It’s actually pretty unscientific to think so.
Am I? I never called him a Marxist because he clearly wasn’t. He was an anarcho communist (before bolsheviks burned the term communism).
Yes, you are. The above commenter explicitly mentioned Utopianism vs Scientific Socialism, indicating the intent on following Marxist analysis. Secondly, I don’t know what you mean by the bolsheviks “burning Communism” when they established the first Socialist State.
Still he didn’t claim that it will happen spontaneously. Your dichotomy is wrong. He may not have been a Scientific Socialist in the Marxist Tradition, still his theory was scientific and revolutionary. Historical Materialism isn’t the only path to think scientifically about history and socialism. It’s actually pretty unscientific to think so.
Again, you’re using “Scientific” to refer to literal science, not the term as it relates to Socialism. His theory was Utopian, rejecting history as it develops and instead embracing the concept of there being some perfect society that can be adopted directly. This is Utopianism.
I don’t know what you mean by the bolsheviks “burning Communism”
I said “burning the term communism” as in you can’t use it anymore without thinking of bolshevism. The meme and the comment above mine said communism, not Marxism.
Otherwise you have proven my point that you have no understanding what so ever in his theory. He writes expansively about history and about the revolution and transition. Just because he doesn’t belong to your tradition, you lump him together with people he had little in common with.
Again, you’re using “Scientific” to refer to literal science, not the term as it relates to Socialism.
I never said I wasn’t. I even elaborated on that I reject Marxist Historical Materialism. What even is your point here?
His theory was Utopian, rejecting history as it develops and instead embracing the concept of there being some perfect society that can be adopted directly. This is Utopianism.
Well, did he? He didn’t write about history in Mutual Aid? And Conquest of Bread is not about a literal conquest but about adopting it directly? Do you even think before you write?
I said “burning the term communism” as in you can’t use it anymore without thinking of bolshevism. The meme and the comment above mine said communism, not Marxism.
Generally, “Communism” is attached to Communists, the vast majority of whom have been Marxists of various stripes, the most relevent among them being Marxist-Leninists. Communism wasn’t stolen from the Anarchists, Communism was attached firmly to the groups with major historical relevance.
Additionally, “burning” implies betrayal and scorn.
Finally, OP is a Marxist, not an Anarchist, and the comment you replied to specifically mentioned critique of Utopianism, indicating Marxist analysis and critique.
Otherwise you have proven my point that you have no understanding what so ever in his theory. He writes expansively about history and about the revolution and transition. Just because he doesn’t belong to your tradition, you lump him together with people he had little in common with.
That’s all well and good. Writing about transition, revolution, and history is nice. However, ultimately, he was an Anarchist. He rejects the Marxist theory of Socialism as it emerges from Capitalism throughout historical development, and took the idea that Communism can be established outright. This is a rejection of Scientific Socialism, and an embracement of Utopian Socialism, I remind you as this meme and the original commenter both were speaking along Marxist lines.
I never said I wasn’t. I even elaborated on that I reject Marxist Historical Materialism. What even is your point here?
My point is that you inserted your rejection when it wasn’t relevant as though it was.
Well, did he? He didn’t write about history in Mutual Aid? And Conquest of Bread is not about a literal conquest but about adopting it directly? Do you even think before you write?
He of course wrote about history, and the necessity of Revolution, but rejected Historical Materialism and Scientific Socialism, instead taking a Utopian view. He believed you could jump straight to Communism through a brief transitional period.
You’re being needlessly antagonistic and rude, by the way.
I love how the commenter above me already agreed with me but you still feel the need to defend them for no reason.
They used the term Utopian Socialism, not implying that they were Marxist. There are more than two ways. Kropotkin for example was neither. All you’re saying is “he wasn’t Marxist so he was Utopian” which is wrong as I and the commenter above me already agreed on.
You can even be Marxist and still reject Historical Materialism as John the Duncan does even tho he sadly never dedicated a video on that, just hints it here and there.
That’s my point. It’s all about doing self-interested things like mutual aid. Mutual defense is in my self-interest. A dairy co-operative is in the farmers’ interest. Zebras move in herds because it is in their mutual self-interest.
The initial comment is saying communism is about self-sacrifice, against human nature. Kropotkin (I’ve read the book three times btw) convincing makes the case that it’s the opposite of self-sacrifice: about pursuing our natural mutual interest according to our evolutionary imperatives. Kropotkin would say that ruthless competition is against our evolutionary nature and imperatives because it disadvantages survival.
It’s not “destroying all the enemies of the working class” but “destroying classes so we end up being working class”. The idea (as I understand it) is that working class is the one that creates things while bourgeois class is only a parasite. So everyone should be creating something and not sucking the blood of others.
Close. Neither case is fully correct
Communisn is the doctrine of the conditions of the abolition of the Proletariat
-Engels, The Principles of Communism
The bourgeoisie doesn’t create value, the proletariat does, correct, but dogmatic class warfare is anti-Marxist. Class warfare must service the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie via smashing the Bourgeois state, and replacing it with a Proletarian state that withers away as it untangles class contradictions. You cannot create Communism by killing all of the bourgeoisie, but by wresting their power as Socialism emerges from Capitalism.
You don’t tho because you still have people in power. Even if it’s a policeman. That’s enough
huh?
The real communism
Considering Ayn Rand’s novels as literature was a mistake.
“One of the USSRs biggest mistakes was giving Ayn Rand an education”
“And when all those self made champions went away and created a new society, free of the old one, one of them asked ‘does anyone of us know how to cook?’. And then they screamed in fear”.
Considering Ayn Rand’s novels
as literaturewas a mistake.
