June 13
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that plays a Project Veritas video that Refusefa is Antifa and that George Soros funds them. This appeared on Heidelblog.
Refusefa is not antifa. One only needs to read Refusefa's website, listen to their presentations, or look at the age demographics of its members to tell. I have street knowledge of Antifa. Clark doesn't have that.
I watched the video referred to in the video above. There is no proof that they were training anyone from Refusefa. Rather the only reference to Refusefa made is the following: Refusefa(Antifa) label made by Project Veritas which tries to conflate the two. In fact, video presentations like the one above should never be used as proof for a claim against a group because there is no way of knowing how the video was edited to make a point. Such videos, like the one above, at best should only be used to get people to start investigating claims
From here, we should note the factual reporting rating that Project Veritas has. According to Mediabiasfactcheck, Project Veritas has a mixed factual reporting rating because of some of its previous reports have been shown to be false (see https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/project-veritas/ ). Before one either accepts or rejects that report, one should look at the specifics as to why Project Veritas received such a rating, one should look at the specifics of the report.
An example of Project Veritas's work, one could look at their attempt to get the Washington Post to publish a false accusation against Roy Moore (see https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/washington-post/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-project-veritas/ ). But such is only one example. Other examples are needed to get a better picture of Project Veritas.
What does the above mean? For the Christian it means that if one is to avoid violating the commandment prohibiting bearing false witness, then one should consult other news sources and stories that confirm the accusations made by groups like Project Veritas. Otherwise, one has negligently, at best, or opportunistically, at worst, made oneself vulnerable to bearing false witness against a person or group.
Unfortunately , Clark makes no such effort to verify a claim made by a questionable source. Going back to the videos, what proof was given that Refusefa and Antifa are the same or even linked together. Antifa is a street fighting group. I have street experience with them because I met them before they became (in)famous. They see themselves as today's version of the communists who battled the Brown Shirts in Germany prior to Hitler coming to power. BTW, we should note that regarding the recent protests and riots, the FBI found no evidence that Antifa was involved in the recent rioting and destruction of property following the George Floyd murder. However, it was discovered that some of the destruction of property was committed by people who were trying to sabotage peaceful protests.
Refusefa also opposes fascism, but they do so peacefully through protests. In the principles page of their website, it explicitly states that Refusefa opposes fascism with NON-VIOLENT protests. Refusefa consists of a diverse group of people who are opposing what they see being done by the Trump/Pence Administration (see https://refusefascism.org/category/on-critical-questions/ ).
In relation to the Commandment prohibiting bearing false witness against one's neighbor, we should also note that George Soros is a favorite whipping boy of conservative conspiracy theorists According to some, he pays protesters but that has been shown to be false. In fact, in my 15 years of activism, I've never seen a protester who was paid just to protest in some event.
According to some, Soros and Hillary fund Black Lives Matter (BLM). But that was shown to be false for Soros and problematic for Hillary since BLM has publicly expressed serious disagreements with her.
Soros has founded Open Societies Foundation (see https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/ ) which gives grants to different groups as described in their website. A list of their awarded grants from 2016 to 2018 can be found on the following website (see https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/past ) and current grants can be found on the following website (see https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants?sort_by=name ).
We should note that some who want to incite fear create conspiracy stories while those who are truly afraid find it more difficult to tell the difference between fact and fantasy. They are not just the true victims and intentional targets of conspiracy theorists, they also tend to be vulnerable to whims of active authoritarian teachers and leaders. And that is something we should wonder about here since Clark has passed along unexamined accusations from a suspect news source about a activist group whose politics he obviously opposes. .
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June 14
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that consisted of a video of a Eastern European church planter as he talks about the effects of Communism in his nation. This appeared on Heidelblog.
Conservatism's biggest weakness is that it relies on oversimplifying problems and issues. The above is such an example.
One way Conservatism oversimplifies the subject of Communism is that it relies almost exclusively, if not exclusivity, on the past to define the present. In fact it relies on a partial view of the past. Thus Communism is reduced to what was tried in the past regardless of whether what was tried in the past was truly Marxist.
The Soviet Union and the nations behind the Iron Curtain experienced Bolshevik rule. We should note that the reason for the Soviet takeover of the eastern European nations was because of past invasions from the West. What is left unmentioned is that many socialists died because of either Bolshevik purges or opposing Bolshevik rule. And the Western Christian response to that is to equate what the Bolsheviks did with Communism regardless of vast differences between Bolshevism and what other socialists believed in. In fact, we could also point out the vast differences between Bolshevism and what Marx wrote.
What is also ignored are the sins of the West, especially the US. For most part Communist revolutions sought to overthrow tyrants who were supported by the West. The Tsars, French colonialism in Vietnam followed by dictators in South Vietnam, Batista in Cuba, and Somoza in Nicaragua provide some examples. In addition, many times the US replaced left-leaning democracies with harsh dictators. Examples include Iran (1953) with help from the UK, Guatemala (1954), Greece (1967), and Chile (1973).
See, in an overly simplistic world, citing Leftist opposition to tyranny whether it proceeded a revolution or was the result of Western intervention complicates the subject because now we have what were the good guys doing bad and the bad guys doing good. This complicates things.
In addition, the Sandinista rule over Nicaragua during the 1980s which started with the overthrow of the dictator Somoza introduced Nicaragua to democracy. It didn't work out because the US supported terrorist attacks on Nicaragua until the nation was so damaged and the Sandinistas were voted out.
And because Conservatism relies so much on the past to define the present, it has become blind to the changes in anti-Capitalism over the years. Those changes are described in Ezequiel Adamovsky's book, Anti-Capitalism.
Now the presenter was certainly correct in his comments on utopianism. And Marx was a utopian. But that doesn't make everything he said wrong. In addition, we might note that there are two kinds of utopianism: absolute and relative.
Marx believed in an absolute utopianism. But there are those who support relative utopias in the West. A relative utopia is one that is viewed as being so good that it cannot be improved on. And that is the view that many in the US have of Capitalism even though many of those people are unaware of the different kinds of Capitalism. Thus, there is a resistance to any changes to our capitalist economy because of the belief that it is the best and thus cannot be improved on.
And while the presenter talked about envy in both Communism and post-Communism, that envy is in the West too as it is especially evident in the decades-long growth in wealth disparity since the much of the world has embraced neoliberal capitalism.
Was there corruption in Communism? Of course, But is there any less corruption in the US, for example, when its economy relies on the maximization of profits philosophy? The causes for the economic collapse of 2008 were largely due to corruption. And the almost recent study showing how the US is now more of an oligarchy than a democracy (see )https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ). Do we honestly think that such a transition occurred without envy, greed, and corruption?
There are many other problems with the video presentation that could be mentioned, but that would only take up too much time. In short, the video presentation is simply an example of opportunism, this time by conservatives, to take a shallow look at Communism/Socialism in order to discredit it. And while the presenter wants to speak to those in the US who are considering Marxism, he fails to listen to why they would do so. The why might be that Capitalism has failed too many people in the West.
Finally, we need to address the issue of religion here. Church history is replete with examples of the dominant branch of the Church for a given nation siding with wealth and power at the expense of others. When that occurred prior to a revolution, revolutionaries naturally believed that the Church contributed to the suffering of others and was the enemy of the people. Marxists have responded in different ways to that. For example, Lenin observed how many Russians Christians from the Church there ignored and failed to help workers who were suffering because of the economic system. His response to the Church was to label it as an enemy of change.
Rosa Luxemburg, however, pleaded with Christians to join the cause and side with the workers who were suffering greatly in Russia. In Latin America, Liberation Theologians combined liberal Christianity with some of Marxism. So Marxism has been able to mix with religion. BTW, some of those Latin American Liberation Theologians were assassinated by Latin American fighters who were trained in the US.
It is sad that on a Christian blog, honesty on this subject is in very short supply. Why? It is because of opportunism, a similar kind of opportunism demonstrated by people like Lenin and Mao only there was no dictatorship that followed. Rather, there was just a hiding of the truth and an attempt to control thinking.
www.flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com
(Only one person pictured is a Christian Fundamentalist. And so which one pictured is not like the others)
Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Friday, April 17, 2020
Another Failed Christian Attempt To Understand Marx
Fortunately, this is our last review of Ralph Drollinger's work. The article for today's review is his article comparing capitalism with communism (click here). Unfortunately, Drollinger's shows no real understanding of Marx and thus he is comparing capitalism with a straw man. In addition, it seems that Drollinger is blind to full effects of the economic system he loves.
First, let's take a look at Drollinger's understanding of communism, or really Marxism. Drollinger reduces Marxism to the abolishing of private property without understanding Marx's most basic concern and belief. Drollinger reduces Marxism, which he calls communism, to the abolishing of private property with the state being the owner of everything. To establish his case, Drollinger quotes from the Communist Manifesto (click here for the Manifesto and click the link for part II):
We should first note that Marx was speaking to the conditions of his time. So we may not see today all that he saw back then. And the conditions back then were that private property was a privilege for the bourgeoisie, not the workers. So what we see in Marx is not an attack on the private property of all, but of the bourgeoisie private property because that property gave the the bourgeoisie social power that enabled them to exploit the workers. Thus, by eliminating property and putting it in the hands of the state, the bourgeoisie has lost its power.
But does that mean that state ownership of all private property is what Marxism is about? The answer is below:
I want to be clear here, I am not defending all that Marx wrote. I disagree with his utopianism, his idealism about the 'proletariat dictatorship' and so forth. But if we step back to a greater abstraction, what Marx said back then is a partial remedy for today's Neoliberal Capitalism. That without an all-or-nothing changing of the guard, we need to redistribute power, both at work and in our political system, to the workers and other stakeholder groups in our economy. So that these other groups share power with the owners, the bourgeoisie of our time. That ownership by wealth does not give one the kind of rights that Drollinger seems to think exist.
Thus, Drollinger never really addresses what Marx and the Communist Manifesto was about. Drollinger should read Marx's On The Jewish Question. For in that work, Marx states that some of the states in the United States have accomplished the ideal of abolishing private property when they allow non landowners to vote and run for office because that allows for the possibility that such people could pass legislation that could control landowners (click here for that work).
We should note that like Capitalism, Socialism is not a monolith. There are different forms of both. The form of Capitalism which our nation employs today, Neoliberal Capitalism, is not the form it practiced immediately after WW II, the Bretton-Woods system. The latter allowed for more government control and intervention into the economy than the former. The former is, in spirit at least, follows the self-centered mindset of Ayn Rand's philosophy. And while the Bretton-Woods system saw egalitarian growth for all economic classes, the Neoliberal Capitalism has, for the most part, been the major cause for a decades long growth in wealth disparity--which has also produced a growth in political power disparity in favor of those in the upper economic classes. And that political power disparity is to the extent that some are now questioning whether America is a democracy or an oligarchy (click here and there).
The bourgeoisie of Marx's day has been replaced by the wealthy shareholders of today. For before the pandemic, which has seemed to alert people of our interdependencies, wealthy shareholders have been the absentee landlords of our financial system. They are constantly buying and selling stocks with the single intent of maximizing their personal profits without thought of what they could contribute to the other stakeholders of the company. And though things are not as bad for all workers as they were in Marx's day, many who work for publicly owned companies, both white and blue collar employees, know that they are disposable objects of profit for the welfare of the shareholders.
There isn't enough time to fully address the rest of Drollinger's article. Part of that is because he demonstrates an ignorance of what Marx was about and what he meant by the abolition of private property. It is also apparent that Drollinger doesn't see the full impact of the economic system he so enthusiastically thinks is strongly supported by the Scriptures. If only Drollinger would understand Marx's most basic concern and address it with how he things the Scriptures should apply, then he could have written something worth reading. But as it stands now, it seems that Drollinger has found a way to use the Bible to sanctify the economic system he grew up in. And such is a common practice that most often leads to serious errors.
References
First, let's take a look at Drollinger's understanding of communism, or really Marxism. Drollinger reduces Marxism to the abolishing of private property without understanding Marx's most basic concern and belief. Drollinger reduces Marxism, which he calls communism, to the abolishing of private property with the state being the owner of everything. To establish his case, Drollinger quotes from the Communist Manifesto (click here for the Manifesto and click the link for part II):
The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: the abolition of private property.There is no doubt that Marx wrote those words. But what was Marx's concern in coming to that conclusion? We can discover that by reading the parts of the Manifesto that both precede and follow that famous line by Marx. Below are some of the lines that are also part of the Manifesto:
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few...
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.
To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character...
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at...
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
We should first note that Marx was speaking to the conditions of his time. So we may not see today all that he saw back then. And the conditions back then were that private property was a privilege for the bourgeoisie, not the workers. So what we see in Marx is not an attack on the private property of all, but of the bourgeoisie private property because that property gave the the bourgeoisie social power that enabled them to exploit the workers. Thus, by eliminating property and putting it in the hands of the state, the bourgeoisie has lost its power.
But does that mean that state ownership of all private property is what Marxism is about? The answer is below:
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality.What is clear from above is that Marx's first concern is not that of redistributing wealth, but of redistributing power. And that redistribution of power is not to the state per se, but to the workers, the proletariat. And, according to Marx, with that redistribution of power comes the elimination of not just bourgeoisie private property, but of divisions caused by nationalism.
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.
The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat…
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want to be clear here, I am not defending all that Marx wrote. I disagree with his utopianism, his idealism about the 'proletariat dictatorship' and so forth. But if we step back to a greater abstraction, what Marx said back then is a partial remedy for today's Neoliberal Capitalism. That without an all-or-nothing changing of the guard, we need to redistribute power, both at work and in our political system, to the workers and other stakeholder groups in our economy. So that these other groups share power with the owners, the bourgeoisie of our time. That ownership by wealth does not give one the kind of rights that Drollinger seems to think exist.
Thus, Drollinger never really addresses what Marx and the Communist Manifesto was about. Drollinger should read Marx's On The Jewish Question. For in that work, Marx states that some of the states in the United States have accomplished the ideal of abolishing private property when they allow non landowners to vote and run for office because that allows for the possibility that such people could pass legislation that could control landowners (click here for that work).
We should note that like Capitalism, Socialism is not a monolith. There are different forms of both. The form of Capitalism which our nation employs today, Neoliberal Capitalism, is not the form it practiced immediately after WW II, the Bretton-Woods system. The latter allowed for more government control and intervention into the economy than the former. The former is, in spirit at least, follows the self-centered mindset of Ayn Rand's philosophy. And while the Bretton-Woods system saw egalitarian growth for all economic classes, the Neoliberal Capitalism has, for the most part, been the major cause for a decades long growth in wealth disparity--which has also produced a growth in political power disparity in favor of those in the upper economic classes. And that political power disparity is to the extent that some are now questioning whether America is a democracy or an oligarchy (click here and there).
The bourgeoisie of Marx's day has been replaced by the wealthy shareholders of today. For before the pandemic, which has seemed to alert people of our interdependencies, wealthy shareholders have been the absentee landlords of our financial system. They are constantly buying and selling stocks with the single intent of maximizing their personal profits without thought of what they could contribute to the other stakeholders of the company. And though things are not as bad for all workers as they were in Marx's day, many who work for publicly owned companies, both white and blue collar employees, know that they are disposable objects of profit for the welfare of the shareholders.
There isn't enough time to fully address the rest of Drollinger's article. Part of that is because he demonstrates an ignorance of what Marx was about and what he meant by the abolition of private property. It is also apparent that Drollinger doesn't see the full impact of the economic system he so enthusiastically thinks is strongly supported by the Scriptures. If only Drollinger would understand Marx's most basic concern and address it with how he things the Scriptures should apply, then he could have written something worth reading. But as it stands now, it seems that Drollinger has found a way to use the Bible to sanctify the economic system he grew up in. And such is a common practice that most often leads to serious errors.
References
- https://capmin.org/government-and-economics-capitalism-vs-communism/
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 28, 2018
March 23
To John Horvat and his blogpost on a Christian approach to the tariff issue. In his article, Horvat sees the tariff issue as being argued over by two groups: those who promote free trade with the fewest possible restraints vs those who want to control trade according to how it impacts culture. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Though Horvat makes a useful distinction between the economics of those who favor as much free trade as possible vs those who want to check economics at the door of culture, he misses a basic point about economics. That being that those who favor more and more unrestricted free trade are not approaching the subject as economists; instead, their only interest here is in commerce. For commerce is defined as (see http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/commerce.html ):
What is missing from the free trade perspective is the paying of attention to production. For production involves workers and then the society and the culture that depends on those workers. Production also involves the environmental impact of production as well. What the advocates of free trade focus on are the immediate returns from the exchange of goods. This feeds the embracing of the ethic that calls for maximizing profits. And the maximizing profits ethic focuses first on the welfare of the owners. A secondary focus is paid to the consumers but only to the extent that it serves the owners. For the maximizing profits ethic is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all other ethical standards and values. For all other standards and values must be sacrificed when one makes one's goal the creation of as much profit as possible.
The emphasis on maximizing profits makes Horvat's suggestion of Natural Protectionism DOA. For Natural Protectionism is nothing more than Adam Smith's teaching on the Invisible Hand, if memory serves. So once owners, and then consumers after them, embrace the maximizing profits ethics, concern for local preferences is easily sacrificed just as all other standards and values are to serve the maximizing of profits.
Aside from what has just been noted above, Horvat's description of those who want to at least somewhat control economics because of its impact on culture is a portrayal of those who want democracy to control economics, which includes commerce.
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To Dan Hugger and his blogpost on self-deceit, utopian ideologies, and Communism. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Not knowing how the the term Communism is being used above, I will offer the following points.
First, Communism/Socialism is not a monolith. And note that not all Socialists have utopian expectations. How can that be? It is possible because not all who follow Marx fully agree with him or interpret him the same way.
Second, those who claim that their pet political-economic system is the best of all time and cannot improved on or be beat by another system have already implied that they hold to a utopia of their own. Unlike Marx's utopia, their utopia is a relative one as its results are compared with the results of other systems. Thus, those who believe that free markets are the all time best way of doing commerce, note I wrote 'commerce,' not 'economics,' and that they cannot be improved on have already implied that we have entered a utopia of sorts. And then what was said above about utopian ideologies applies to systems that are promoted as producing relative utopias.
Third, conservatives who portray the Communism/Socialism practiced in the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba, etc. as the only form of Communism/Socialism that exists are either being disingenuous or have deliberately limited their reading about Communism/Socialism to sources that are wholly antagonistic to Marx and Marxism. That means that they are being either deliberately deceitful or they are speaking out of ignorance. Those who have never read Marx and the writings of his various followers are free to say what they want to about Marxism, they are just unqualified to do so.
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March 24
To Joe Carter with his blogpost that cites Samuel Gregg’s attempt to make a patriotic case for free trade. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Whether a patriotic case can be made for free trade depends on what we identify as being American and thus what we call patriotic. According to the cited article by Samuel Gregg (see http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/03/21211/ ), embracing free trade is good for commerce, allows America to be more innovating, and forces America to be more flexible and adaptable. All of that goes into what Gregg, and Carter, think of as making America great and it is that search for America's greatness that Gregg calls patriotic.
But there are problems with what free trade apologists advocate. For one thing, and Gregg's article provides an example for this, free trade apologists fail to give America's past protectionist policies their due. Yes, there were trade-offs with those policies, but those policies allowed America to develop its own industries survive foreign competition. For free trade allows foreign nations with more developed industries to compete in a developing nation with domestic industries and those domestic industries often have less chance to survive (see https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/ha-joon-chang-protectionism-the-truth-is-on-a-10-bill-5334137.html ), Thus free trade can partially enforce an economic caste system as more developed nations are found 'kicking away the ladder' of protectionism from developing nations (see http://www.paecon.net/PAEtexts/Chang1.htm ).
In addition, as Gregg sees free trade calling on workers to be more 'adaptable and plan for the future more carefully, workers are more likely to see the work place as being more volatile as the continual switching from job to job becomes the norm. This puts many American workers in a bind for not only must they make enough to pay for immediate expenses, they are also expected to prepare for sizable fuure expenses such as college education for their children and their own retirement. In the meantime, those who benefit most from the free trade that is meant to provide lower costs for the consumer are benefiting the most from the deal. This might serve as a partial explanation for why America has seen a steady increase in wealth disparity over the past few decades. All of that shows that free trade apologists are more concerned with a tunnel view of commerce as opposed to the wide-angle picture that is provided by the discipline of economics. For economics is not only concerned with commerce, but it is concerned with production as well.
Also, those who define America by its performance in commerce might have grounds for wrapping the flag around free trade. But those who place a high value on democracy cannot. For free trade continually severs business's accountability to the government. And when that government is a working democracy, then we find that free trade makes businesses less responsive to democracy.
Finally, those who condemn "Communism" for the unintended consequences of its quest for utopia while promoting free trade for all nations in all circumstances are themselves promoting their own utopia. In reality, both free trade and protectionism are human models of thought with neither one being neither a monolith nor perfect. Free trade and protectionism stand on opposing poles on the same continuum. And varying degrees of each one works at different times for different nations. Those who believe otherwise are the ones who show themselves to be least flexible and adaptable.
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March 27
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that uses the myth of a frog that refuses to leave a pot of slowly boiling water with the scientific consensus on climate change. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
What I learned from this article is that frogs who reside in slowly boiling water can still demonstrate more intelligence than some humans. I also learned that theologians struggle with logic. Take the comparison of the past accepted truth that earth was the center of the universe and that science is settled on climate change used in order to give an example of how a once accepted truth was exposed as being false. Besides the fact that the latter is stated too ambiguously to make a legitimate comparison, the data on which each accepted truth is based is significantly different in terms of sources and amount of data. Such differences makes the comparison invalid for the point being made.
However, the association of religiously conservative Christianity with a rejection of the warnings about climate change does harm the reputation of the Gospel to both political non-conservatives and even some political conservatives. And considering that businesses stand to lose profits when acting on the available scientific consensus on climate change, we should remember the times in Church history when the dominant branch of the Church sided with wealth and power during pre-revolutionary times of nations like France, Russia, and Spain. That is because when their respective revolutions came, not only was the reputation of the Gospel harmed, Christians suffered unnecessary persecution for the alliance.
To John Horvat and his blogpost on a Christian approach to the tariff issue. In his article, Horvat sees the tariff issue as being argued over by two groups: those who promote free trade with the fewest possible restraints vs those who want to control trade according to how it impacts culture. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Though Horvat makes a useful distinction between the economics of those who favor as much free trade as possible vs those who want to check economics at the door of culture, he misses a basic point about economics. That being that those who favor more and more unrestricted free trade are not approaching the subject as economists; instead, their only interest here is in commerce. For commerce is defined as (see http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/commerce.html ):
Exchange of goods or services for money or in kind, usually on a scale large enough to require transportation from place to place or across city, state, or national boundaries.On the other hand, economics is defined as (see https://www.britannica.com/topic/economics ):
[the] social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth.
What is missing from the free trade perspective is the paying of attention to production. For production involves workers and then the society and the culture that depends on those workers. Production also involves the environmental impact of production as well. What the advocates of free trade focus on are the immediate returns from the exchange of goods. This feeds the embracing of the ethic that calls for maximizing profits. And the maximizing profits ethic focuses first on the welfare of the owners. A secondary focus is paid to the consumers but only to the extent that it serves the owners. For the maximizing profits ethic is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all other ethical standards and values. For all other standards and values must be sacrificed when one makes one's goal the creation of as much profit as possible.
The emphasis on maximizing profits makes Horvat's suggestion of Natural Protectionism DOA. For Natural Protectionism is nothing more than Adam Smith's teaching on the Invisible Hand, if memory serves. So once owners, and then consumers after them, embrace the maximizing profits ethics, concern for local preferences is easily sacrificed just as all other standards and values are to serve the maximizing of profits.
Aside from what has just been noted above, Horvat's description of those who want to at least somewhat control economics because of its impact on culture is a portrayal of those who want democracy to control economics, which includes commerce.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Dan Hugger and his blogpost on self-deceit, utopian ideologies, and Communism. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Not knowing how the the term Communism is being used above, I will offer the following points.
First, Communism/Socialism is not a monolith. And note that not all Socialists have utopian expectations. How can that be? It is possible because not all who follow Marx fully agree with him or interpret him the same way.
Second, those who claim that their pet political-economic system is the best of all time and cannot improved on or be beat by another system have already implied that they hold to a utopia of their own. Unlike Marx's utopia, their utopia is a relative one as its results are compared with the results of other systems. Thus, those who believe that free markets are the all time best way of doing commerce, note I wrote 'commerce,' not 'economics,' and that they cannot be improved on have already implied that we have entered a utopia of sorts. And then what was said above about utopian ideologies applies to systems that are promoted as producing relative utopias.
Third, conservatives who portray the Communism/Socialism practiced in the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba, etc. as the only form of Communism/Socialism that exists are either being disingenuous or have deliberately limited their reading about Communism/Socialism to sources that are wholly antagonistic to Marx and Marxism. That means that they are being either deliberately deceitful or they are speaking out of ignorance. Those who have never read Marx and the writings of his various followers are free to say what they want to about Marxism, they are just unqualified to do so.
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March 24
To Joe Carter with his blogpost that cites Samuel Gregg’s attempt to make a patriotic case for free trade. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Whether a patriotic case can be made for free trade depends on what we identify as being American and thus what we call patriotic. According to the cited article by Samuel Gregg (see http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/03/21211/ ), embracing free trade is good for commerce, allows America to be more innovating, and forces America to be more flexible and adaptable. All of that goes into what Gregg, and Carter, think of as making America great and it is that search for America's greatness that Gregg calls patriotic.
But there are problems with what free trade apologists advocate. For one thing, and Gregg's article provides an example for this, free trade apologists fail to give America's past protectionist policies their due. Yes, there were trade-offs with those policies, but those policies allowed America to develop its own industries survive foreign competition. For free trade allows foreign nations with more developed industries to compete in a developing nation with domestic industries and those domestic industries often have less chance to survive (see https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/ha-joon-chang-protectionism-the-truth-is-on-a-10-bill-5334137.html ), Thus free trade can partially enforce an economic caste system as more developed nations are found 'kicking away the ladder' of protectionism from developing nations (see http://www.paecon.net/PAEtexts/Chang1.htm ).
In addition, as Gregg sees free trade calling on workers to be more 'adaptable and plan for the future more carefully, workers are more likely to see the work place as being more volatile as the continual switching from job to job becomes the norm. This puts many American workers in a bind for not only must they make enough to pay for immediate expenses, they are also expected to prepare for sizable fuure expenses such as college education for their children and their own retirement. In the meantime, those who benefit most from the free trade that is meant to provide lower costs for the consumer are benefiting the most from the deal. This might serve as a partial explanation for why America has seen a steady increase in wealth disparity over the past few decades. All of that shows that free trade apologists are more concerned with a tunnel view of commerce as opposed to the wide-angle picture that is provided by the discipline of economics. For economics is not only concerned with commerce, but it is concerned with production as well.
Also, those who define America by its performance in commerce might have grounds for wrapping the flag around free trade. But those who place a high value on democracy cannot. For free trade continually severs business's accountability to the government. And when that government is a working democracy, then we find that free trade makes businesses less responsive to democracy.
Finally, those who condemn "Communism" for the unintended consequences of its quest for utopia while promoting free trade for all nations in all circumstances are themselves promoting their own utopia. In reality, both free trade and protectionism are human models of thought with neither one being neither a monolith nor perfect. Free trade and protectionism stand on opposing poles on the same continuum. And varying degrees of each one works at different times for different nations. Those who believe otherwise are the ones who show themselves to be least flexible and adaptable.
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March 27
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that uses the myth of a frog that refuses to leave a pot of slowly boiling water with the scientific consensus on climate change. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
What I learned from this article is that frogs who reside in slowly boiling water can still demonstrate more intelligence than some humans. I also learned that theologians struggle with logic. Take the comparison of the past accepted truth that earth was the center of the universe and that science is settled on climate change used in order to give an example of how a once accepted truth was exposed as being false. Besides the fact that the latter is stated too ambiguously to make a legitimate comparison, the data on which each accepted truth is based is significantly different in terms of sources and amount of data. Such differences makes the comparison invalid for the point being made.
However, the association of religiously conservative Christianity with a rejection of the warnings about climate change does harm the reputation of the Gospel to both political non-conservatives and even some political conservatives. And considering that businesses stand to lose profits when acting on the available scientific consensus on climate change, we should remember the times in Church history when the dominant branch of the Church sided with wealth and power during pre-revolutionary times of nations like France, Russia, and Spain. That is because when their respective revolutions came, not only was the reputation of the Gospel harmed, Christians suffered unnecessary persecution for the alliance.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Comments Which Conservative Blogs Block From Their Blogs For January 17, 2018
Jan 12
To Rev Ben Johnson and his blogpost claiming that higher minimum wages increases unemployment. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
As usual, this conservative approach to the problem lacks a broader perspective and awareness of the current system. For such would take an overview of the whole economic system let alone other factors, which are in the system, that would drive up unemployment when raising the minimum wage. We should note that when raising the minimum wage leads to an decrease in employment, only raising the minimum wage is criticized by Johnson. Growing wealth disparity, which, in part, results from not limiting the highest pay one group can make while limiting the minimum wage for another group, is not criticized despite the IMF view that wealth disparity can lower the limit and duration of economic growth (see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/06/13/editorials/challenge-economic-orthodoxy/#.WllXX7XoSfY ). In addition, the widespread ethic of many businesses to maximize profits is not criticized which should be ironic since the writer of the above article has the title reverend.
Rev Johnson doesn't step outside the economic system in which we live to realize that it is offering low-skilled workers a choice between poverty wages and unemployment while many supporters of that system are demanding that such workers pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Also note that only America's economic system is being used as a frame of reference when examining the relationship between higher minimum wages and employment rates. So we might want to look at some European nations that have higher minimum wages to see how employments rates change. For if higher minimum wages do not cause the increased levels of unemployment in those nations as they do here, then we might realize that something needs to change in our economic system if not the system itself. And we should also note that paying employees poverty wages does help businesses maximize profits since those making such wages get help from government assistance programs that are supported by the same taxes that many businesses do their best to avoid paying. This is business's way of proving that it can have its cake and eat it too.
So we have an economic system that provides the draconian choice for low-skill workers along with a commonly adopted ethic of maximizing one's profits while only the American economic system is evaluated, and Rev. Johnson can only blame higher minimum wages for rising unemployment.
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Jan 13
To Christopher Degroot and his blogpost about the problems with having a lack of self-knowledge. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
There are some good points made here. That what we believe about ourselves falls more in line with what we want to believe than what is true is an excellent point. But that applies not just to individuals but to groups and even whole societies. Should that truth make us leery of saying that America was ever a 'a city on the hill'? Certainly many Native Americans would not see our nation that way..
And yes, government policies are not the silver bullets that kill the evil inside of us. But that doesn't mean that they can't many times protect others from the evil that is us. That was a point made by Martin Luther King Jr. And who can say that the long-term effect of protective laws does not tend to help people change or develop differently? For many who believe that what is legal is what is moral, can't structural changes partially affect what they think is moral?
There is an evil in all of us. And what is counter intuitive to us religiously conservative Christians is that sometimes, we are the ones who exhibit more evil than unbelievers. In fact, some unbelievers are or become very noble. And that means that unbelievers don't always need us to change. In fact, sometimes, quite the opposite is true.
Yes, we need structural and policy changes that curb the evils in us which hurt others. But we also need to promote what Martin Luther King called a 'person-oriented society' over against a 'thing-oriented society.' In the former, people are counted as being more important than gadgets, profits, and property rights. That should be the minimal moral standard for our society. And if we don't associate the preaching of the Gospel with that moral standard, then either we will misrepresent the Gospel or we will pre-emptively offend people so that they don't want to listen to the Gospel.
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Jan 16
To Rev. Ben Johnson and his blogpost about how King rejected Communism. This appeared in the Acton blog.
We should note that King criticized and eventually rejected Capitalism. His criticisms of Capitalism, which were not just to do the people he hung with and read, included its own kind of materialism, which King thought was just as destructive as Communism's materialism, Capitalism denied that life was social, which paralleled his criticism of Communism as forgetting that life is individual, and he rejected Capitalism because of how it distributed wealth. He actually favored a democratic socialism because, unlike many of the Left's opponents, he did not suffer from having binary vision when looking at history or the present. Binary vision causes people to see the other side as being a monolith full of evil.
Furthermore King called for us to workout a hybrid that included the best of both Communism and Capitalism. BTW, we should note that the form of Capitalism practiced during King's time is not the same form of Capitalism practiced today. What was practiced during King's time included far more government control of the economy than what is practiced in today's nations that embrace, to varying degrees, Neoliberalism. King would have been appalled that we had transitioned from Keynesian form of economics under the Bretton-Woods System to Neoliberalism.
We should also note a specific quote from King that was spoken during his speech against the Vietnam War and addresses the kind of morality embraced during his time and, even more so, today:
We should note two things from this quote. That with Neoliberalism, society has become even more thing-oriented than it was when King was living. Second, the problems of racism, materialism, and militarism cannot be solved for as long as we are a thing-oriented society. That means that despite all of our talk about eliminating racism, we not only need good laws, we need to undergo that moral revolution King spoke about.
To Rev Ben Johnson and his blogpost claiming that higher minimum wages increases unemployment. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
As usual, this conservative approach to the problem lacks a broader perspective and awareness of the current system. For such would take an overview of the whole economic system let alone other factors, which are in the system, that would drive up unemployment when raising the minimum wage. We should note that when raising the minimum wage leads to an decrease in employment, only raising the minimum wage is criticized by Johnson. Growing wealth disparity, which, in part, results from not limiting the highest pay one group can make while limiting the minimum wage for another group, is not criticized despite the IMF view that wealth disparity can lower the limit and duration of economic growth (see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/06/13/editorials/challenge-economic-orthodoxy/#.WllXX7XoSfY ). In addition, the widespread ethic of many businesses to maximize profits is not criticized which should be ironic since the writer of the above article has the title reverend.
Rev Johnson doesn't step outside the economic system in which we live to realize that it is offering low-skilled workers a choice between poverty wages and unemployment while many supporters of that system are demanding that such workers pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Also note that only America's economic system is being used as a frame of reference when examining the relationship between higher minimum wages and employment rates. So we might want to look at some European nations that have higher minimum wages to see how employments rates change. For if higher minimum wages do not cause the increased levels of unemployment in those nations as they do here, then we might realize that something needs to change in our economic system if not the system itself. And we should also note that paying employees poverty wages does help businesses maximize profits since those making such wages get help from government assistance programs that are supported by the same taxes that many businesses do their best to avoid paying. This is business's way of proving that it can have its cake and eat it too.
So we have an economic system that provides the draconian choice for low-skill workers along with a commonly adopted ethic of maximizing one's profits while only the American economic system is evaluated, and Rev. Johnson can only blame higher minimum wages for rising unemployment.
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Jan 13
To Christopher Degroot and his blogpost about the problems with having a lack of self-knowledge. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
There are some good points made here. That what we believe about ourselves falls more in line with what we want to believe than what is true is an excellent point. But that applies not just to individuals but to groups and even whole societies. Should that truth make us leery of saying that America was ever a 'a city on the hill'? Certainly many Native Americans would not see our nation that way..
And yes, government policies are not the silver bullets that kill the evil inside of us. But that doesn't mean that they can't many times protect others from the evil that is us. That was a point made by Martin Luther King Jr. And who can say that the long-term effect of protective laws does not tend to help people change or develop differently? For many who believe that what is legal is what is moral, can't structural changes partially affect what they think is moral?
There is an evil in all of us. And what is counter intuitive to us religiously conservative Christians is that sometimes, we are the ones who exhibit more evil than unbelievers. In fact, some unbelievers are or become very noble. And that means that unbelievers don't always need us to change. In fact, sometimes, quite the opposite is true.
Yes, we need structural and policy changes that curb the evils in us which hurt others. But we also need to promote what Martin Luther King called a 'person-oriented society' over against a 'thing-oriented society.' In the former, people are counted as being more important than gadgets, profits, and property rights. That should be the minimal moral standard for our society. And if we don't associate the preaching of the Gospel with that moral standard, then either we will misrepresent the Gospel or we will pre-emptively offend people so that they don't want to listen to the Gospel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 16
To Rev. Ben Johnson and his blogpost about how King rejected Communism. This appeared in the Acton blog.
We should note that King criticized and eventually rejected Capitalism. His criticisms of Capitalism, which were not just to do the people he hung with and read, included its own kind of materialism, which King thought was just as destructive as Communism's materialism, Capitalism denied that life was social, which paralleled his criticism of Communism as forgetting that life is individual, and he rejected Capitalism because of how it distributed wealth. He actually favored a democratic socialism because, unlike many of the Left's opponents, he did not suffer from having binary vision when looking at history or the present. Binary vision causes people to see the other side as being a monolith full of evil.
Furthermore King called for us to workout a hybrid that included the best of both Communism and Capitalism. BTW, we should note that the form of Capitalism practiced during King's time is not the same form of Capitalism practiced today. What was practiced during King's time included far more government control of the economy than what is practiced in today's nations that embrace, to varying degrees, Neoliberalism. King would have been appalled that we had transitioned from Keynesian form of economics under the Bretton-Woods System to Neoliberalism.
We should also note a specific quote from King that was spoken during his speech against the Vietnam War and addresses the kind of morality embraced during his time and, even more so, today:
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
We should note two things from this quote. That with Neoliberalism, society has become even more thing-oriented than it was when King was living. Second, the problems of racism, materialism, and militarism cannot be solved for as long as we are a thing-oriented society. That means that despite all of our talk about eliminating racism, we not only need good laws, we need to undergo that moral revolution King spoke about.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 15, 2017
March 10
To Brian Mattson and his blogpost review of a book by Ryszard Legato where liberal democracy and totalitarian communism are series as having many similarities including their opposition to Christianity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There are two things we should note here. First, that the author of the book cited, Ryszard Legutko, is an honest broker with no religious strings attached that would color his world view and thus affect how he perceives liberal democracy. Of course such is not the case. Lequtko is a Roman Catholic who opposed the legalization of homosexuality and who is currently being sued for his verbal attack on students who called for the removal of 'Christian symbols' from schools.
Second, as with Ayn Rand, it is very possible that Lequtko's view of the Communism/Socialism is a bit distorted since his only personal experience with the Left is Bolshevism. There are many Leftists who strongly opposed Bolshevism both back when it hijacked the Russian Revolution and today. But Lequtko seems content to associate liberal democracy with its love of 'freedom, diversity, and tolerance' with the totalitarian communism seen in Bolshevism anyway.
So why tie liberal democracy to the totalitarianism of communism? Is it because both had legitimate gripes against Christianity so that their persecution of Christianity did not originate out of religious differences per say. Here we should note that Bolshevism persecuted the Church because the Church supported wealth and power prior to both the February and October Revolutions. We should note that not all on the Left opposed Christianity, but the Bolsheviks did. As for liberal democracy, we need to know the details of why it opposes Christianity. Let assume that, as some like Lequtko would advance, that America was founded on Christianity. We should first note that there was quite a bit of religious intolerance just between Christian denominations themselves. That intolerance finally ended when the Revolutionary War's demands for manpower meant that the American churches could no longer remain too divided.
Then it was out of Christianity that people felt entitled to take land from the Native Americans resulting in ethnically cleansing them from most of America. Then we saw that much of Christianity supported the subjugation of Blacks through slavery and then Jim Crow. And all through America's history we have seen how the American churches have worked to marginalize homosexuals first with criminalizing their practices so that homosexuals could be either executed or incarcerated on to allowing for the discrimination against homosexuals and opposing their equality in society.
It is the details of the diversity that both liberal democracy embraced and much of American Christianity opposed that perhaps sheds light on why Lequtko both would associate it with totalitarian Communism (Bolshevism) and would replace liberal democracy. Perhaps the term is ethnocracy would be the replacement. Ethnocracy refers to the rule of a specific group based on ethnic ties, race, language, national identity, or religion would exercise over the rest of a pluralistic nation using the democratic processes. For if diversity and freedom are our enemies because of their alleged similarities to totalitarian Communism, then some degree of conformity is the solution. And it appears that, according to Lequtko, Classical and Christian traditions would tell us how to conform. But how is it that insistence on conformity is not mentioned as being similar to totalitarian Communism while liberal democracy with its emphasis on diversity is? That, rather than what is attributed to Lequtko as a replacement for liberal democracy, is what requires further explanation in a sequel. And this would also add to why Lequtko said there was a justified fear of religion, which is rather paradoxical.
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March 11
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost on “education liberation,” which is used to describe why we should support vouchers for school choice. This appeared in the Acton blog.
If we applied the school choice model to attending college, then each student who attended a for-profit college, a private college, or a religious college would receive from the state the same assistance that an instate student in a state college receives. Here we should note that what an instate student in a state college receives is hidden since states give money state schools to help finance these state schools.
We should also note that if we applied the college model to the school choice program, we would note that all private, charter, and religious schools would be responsible for providing assistance to students who could not afford to attend their schools.
Now here is the inconsistency. We wouldn't think of giving the same state money to any student who decided to attend for-profit, private, or religious college that is spent on in-state students at state schools. Why? To make that work, we would either have to raise taxes significantly to fund such a program or we would continue to spend less and less on each instate student attending a state school. And yet, we do not call for a college choice program where students who want to attend non-state schools are depicted as needing liberation through a freedom of choice for colleges. But knowing that public schools, some of which are already suffering from a lack of funds because of depleted tax bases, would receive less and less money because those attending non-public schools are taking public school funds with them as non-public schools are at least partially relieved from the responsibility of finding funding for some of their students. As a result, some public schools, which are basically community schools, will suffer deterioration. And if they collapse, there are not enough resources from the non-public school sector to pick up the slack. Then what happens to those students left behind?
The problem is that, just as in college, students are not prohibited from attending the primary and secondary schools of their choice. Therefore, school choice is not a freedom or liberation issue. It is a financial issue both in college and in primary and secondary education. But if we accommodate those who insist otherwise, we should note that enabling students to "escape" their community schools also becomes a student flight issue. And this points to one of the biggest problems with the school choice movement. For rather than addressing the problems and improving the communities in which under-performing schools are located, we are fleeing from problems. And the students that come from troubled communities only escape those communities during school hours. And then they are taught that success is achieved by leaving the community in which they grew up. This causes these communities to suffer further decay.
We have economic segregation in our nation where the houses we move into often depend on the neighbors we can afford to live with. And that means we can completely wash our hands of the plights of the communities we didn't want to live in. What is called school choice further exhibits this segregation not in terms of the schools students can choose, but in terms of the plights of the community schools those students leave behind. What was called 'white flight' is an instance of the kind of flight we see resulting from the school choice movement. And those who are left behind eventually become more and more invisible to government and society. Since not all students can flee from their community schools, we should call the school choice plan with its claims of freedom and liberation a student-flight program because their communities are not worth our concern. And yet, with all of what is being said, we haven't really touched on why we have a school choice movement.
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March 13
To Collin Hansen and his blogpost review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option where part of what is discussed is whether politics can save us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
From the review, it appears is that Dreher does not see the threat that wrong associations can be to the Gospel. For by stating that we live in a post-Christian culture, does he ever ask about what from the Christian culture is being rightly rejected? Fortunately Hansen identifies one problematic association: racism. Another one that is often overlooked is economic classism. This is sometimes missed because the predominant branch of the Church of certain places has often sided with wealth. This was true in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And we should note that once the revolutions took place, the Gospel suffered dishonor because the Church had sided with wealth.
I'm afraid that aligning the Church behind Trump repeats this same mistake. For what has Trump done but to show himself an ally to wealth at the expense of eliminating more of business's social responsibilities than have done away with before. Think about the environment as we extract and use even more fossil fuels, dump fracking wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico, dump waste from coal mining into streams, or put a climate denier as head of the EPA. Or think about the new Republican healthcare plan and how it is projected that millions will lose their health insurance while insurance CEOs get tax breaks. Or think about how Trump's tax and spending plans, including cutting billion of dollars from HUD, continue to bankrupt the country. It is important that he wants to eliminate elective abortions performed by Planned Parenthood, but his other actions will be associated with the pro-life cause if we don't oppose him where he is wrong.
In these times, we need to both preserve the Christian faith while being able to interact with our culture. That includes being credible witnesses by acknowledging the past wrongs of the Church as well as being able to identify where the current culture is at least partially right. I don't see that happening under Dreher's Benedict Option. And if I am right, the pertinent question isn't regarding whether politics can save us. And even if we were to ask that question, we have to also ask save us from what? For apparently, having lost the culture war, some believe that politics could have saved us from that.
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March 14
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost video that makes comparisons in an effort to claim that Christian business owners have the right to refuse providing services to same-sex functions. This appeared in Heidelblog.
For the businesses refusing to sell Ivanka's fashions is not an apples to apples comparison with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex wedding. For one thing, the business that refuses to sell Ivanka's fashions is determining what iventory they will have. And in the of Nordsrum when they refused to continue to carry Ivanka's fashions, it was because her products were not selling. So on two counts, the comparison is not an apples to apples comparison.
As for the Muslim singer having the right to refuse to sing in a church service, again, one must look for an apples to apples comparison if one wants to compare that with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex function. Does the Muslim singer provide his singing as a businessman who serves the general public? If not, there is no apples to apples comparison exists here between his/her refusal and a Christian business owner's refusal to do provide goods and services for the LGBT community or a same-sex function.
As for the Christian business owner who refuses to provide goods and services to a same-sex function because of their personal religious convictions, we must remember that the most apt comparison we can make with this is the Christian business owners who, because of their religious beliefs, refused to serve Blacks during Jim Crow days. Should White Christian business owners have the right to refuse to do business with Blacks for privately held religious reasons? See, here we have more of an apples to apples comparison with Christian business owners' rights to refuse to serve same-sex functions. Why? It is because in both cases, groups from individual consumers are being discriminated against because of their group identity. Allowing such discrimination means that certain kinds of groups of people can suffer partial or full depricvation of goods and services either in isolated locations or throughout the nation in general.
See, the missing ingredient in all of the other examples compared with Christian business owners who refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex functions is the relationship the consumer has with the business refusing a business transaction and the welfare of the group being denied. The way the questions were asked in the video focussed solely on the business owners' concerns; there was no expressed concern for what happens to the other party. And this is what dishonors the Gospel when Christian business owners refuse to provide goods and services to either the LGBT community in general or to same-sex functions. These business owners are only expressing concern for themselves; they are expressing no concern for what potentially can happen to the LGBT community. This is the kind of mistake that Christian business owners made when they refused to serve Blacks or served them in segregated fashion during Jim Crow.
To Brian Mattson and his blogpost review of a book by Ryszard Legato where liberal democracy and totalitarian communism are series as having many similarities including their opposition to Christianity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There are two things we should note here. First, that the author of the book cited, Ryszard Legutko, is an honest broker with no religious strings attached that would color his world view and thus affect how he perceives liberal democracy. Of course such is not the case. Lequtko is a Roman Catholic who opposed the legalization of homosexuality and who is currently being sued for his verbal attack on students who called for the removal of 'Christian symbols' from schools.
Second, as with Ayn Rand, it is very possible that Lequtko's view of the Communism/Socialism is a bit distorted since his only personal experience with the Left is Bolshevism. There are many Leftists who strongly opposed Bolshevism both back when it hijacked the Russian Revolution and today. But Lequtko seems content to associate liberal democracy with its love of 'freedom, diversity, and tolerance' with the totalitarian communism seen in Bolshevism anyway.
So why tie liberal democracy to the totalitarianism of communism? Is it because both had legitimate gripes against Christianity so that their persecution of Christianity did not originate out of religious differences per say. Here we should note that Bolshevism persecuted the Church because the Church supported wealth and power prior to both the February and October Revolutions. We should note that not all on the Left opposed Christianity, but the Bolsheviks did. As for liberal democracy, we need to know the details of why it opposes Christianity. Let assume that, as some like Lequtko would advance, that America was founded on Christianity. We should first note that there was quite a bit of religious intolerance just between Christian denominations themselves. That intolerance finally ended when the Revolutionary War's demands for manpower meant that the American churches could no longer remain too divided.
Then it was out of Christianity that people felt entitled to take land from the Native Americans resulting in ethnically cleansing them from most of America. Then we saw that much of Christianity supported the subjugation of Blacks through slavery and then Jim Crow. And all through America's history we have seen how the American churches have worked to marginalize homosexuals first with criminalizing their practices so that homosexuals could be either executed or incarcerated on to allowing for the discrimination against homosexuals and opposing their equality in society.
It is the details of the diversity that both liberal democracy embraced and much of American Christianity opposed that perhaps sheds light on why Lequtko both would associate it with totalitarian Communism (Bolshevism) and would replace liberal democracy. Perhaps the term is ethnocracy would be the replacement. Ethnocracy refers to the rule of a specific group based on ethnic ties, race, language, national identity, or religion would exercise over the rest of a pluralistic nation using the democratic processes. For if diversity and freedom are our enemies because of their alleged similarities to totalitarian Communism, then some degree of conformity is the solution. And it appears that, according to Lequtko, Classical and Christian traditions would tell us how to conform. But how is it that insistence on conformity is not mentioned as being similar to totalitarian Communism while liberal democracy with its emphasis on diversity is? That, rather than what is attributed to Lequtko as a replacement for liberal democracy, is what requires further explanation in a sequel. And this would also add to why Lequtko said there was a justified fear of religion, which is rather paradoxical.
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March 11
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost on “education liberation,” which is used to describe why we should support vouchers for school choice. This appeared in the Acton blog.
If we applied the school choice model to attending college, then each student who attended a for-profit college, a private college, or a religious college would receive from the state the same assistance that an instate student in a state college receives. Here we should note that what an instate student in a state college receives is hidden since states give money state schools to help finance these state schools.
We should also note that if we applied the college model to the school choice program, we would note that all private, charter, and religious schools would be responsible for providing assistance to students who could not afford to attend their schools.
Now here is the inconsistency. We wouldn't think of giving the same state money to any student who decided to attend for-profit, private, or religious college that is spent on in-state students at state schools. Why? To make that work, we would either have to raise taxes significantly to fund such a program or we would continue to spend less and less on each instate student attending a state school. And yet, we do not call for a college choice program where students who want to attend non-state schools are depicted as needing liberation through a freedom of choice for colleges. But knowing that public schools, some of which are already suffering from a lack of funds because of depleted tax bases, would receive less and less money because those attending non-public schools are taking public school funds with them as non-public schools are at least partially relieved from the responsibility of finding funding for some of their students. As a result, some public schools, which are basically community schools, will suffer deterioration. And if they collapse, there are not enough resources from the non-public school sector to pick up the slack. Then what happens to those students left behind?
The problem is that, just as in college, students are not prohibited from attending the primary and secondary schools of their choice. Therefore, school choice is not a freedom or liberation issue. It is a financial issue both in college and in primary and secondary education. But if we accommodate those who insist otherwise, we should note that enabling students to "escape" their community schools also becomes a student flight issue. And this points to one of the biggest problems with the school choice movement. For rather than addressing the problems and improving the communities in which under-performing schools are located, we are fleeing from problems. And the students that come from troubled communities only escape those communities during school hours. And then they are taught that success is achieved by leaving the community in which they grew up. This causes these communities to suffer further decay.
We have economic segregation in our nation where the houses we move into often depend on the neighbors we can afford to live with. And that means we can completely wash our hands of the plights of the communities we didn't want to live in. What is called school choice further exhibits this segregation not in terms of the schools students can choose, but in terms of the plights of the community schools those students leave behind. What was called 'white flight' is an instance of the kind of flight we see resulting from the school choice movement. And those who are left behind eventually become more and more invisible to government and society. Since not all students can flee from their community schools, we should call the school choice plan with its claims of freedom and liberation a student-flight program because their communities are not worth our concern. And yet, with all of what is being said, we haven't really touched on why we have a school choice movement.
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March 13
To Collin Hansen and his blogpost review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option where part of what is discussed is whether politics can save us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
From the review, it appears is that Dreher does not see the threat that wrong associations can be to the Gospel. For by stating that we live in a post-Christian culture, does he ever ask about what from the Christian culture is being rightly rejected? Fortunately Hansen identifies one problematic association: racism. Another one that is often overlooked is economic classism. This is sometimes missed because the predominant branch of the Church of certain places has often sided with wealth. This was true in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And we should note that once the revolutions took place, the Gospel suffered dishonor because the Church had sided with wealth.
I'm afraid that aligning the Church behind Trump repeats this same mistake. For what has Trump done but to show himself an ally to wealth at the expense of eliminating more of business's social responsibilities than have done away with before. Think about the environment as we extract and use even more fossil fuels, dump fracking wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico, dump waste from coal mining into streams, or put a climate denier as head of the EPA. Or think about the new Republican healthcare plan and how it is projected that millions will lose their health insurance while insurance CEOs get tax breaks. Or think about how Trump's tax and spending plans, including cutting billion of dollars from HUD, continue to bankrupt the country. It is important that he wants to eliminate elective abortions performed by Planned Parenthood, but his other actions will be associated with the pro-life cause if we don't oppose him where he is wrong.
In these times, we need to both preserve the Christian faith while being able to interact with our culture. That includes being credible witnesses by acknowledging the past wrongs of the Church as well as being able to identify where the current culture is at least partially right. I don't see that happening under Dreher's Benedict Option. And if I am right, the pertinent question isn't regarding whether politics can save us. And even if we were to ask that question, we have to also ask save us from what? For apparently, having lost the culture war, some believe that politics could have saved us from that.
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March 14
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost video that makes comparisons in an effort to claim that Christian business owners have the right to refuse providing services to same-sex functions. This appeared in Heidelblog.
For the businesses refusing to sell Ivanka's fashions is not an apples to apples comparison with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex wedding. For one thing, the business that refuses to sell Ivanka's fashions is determining what iventory they will have. And in the of Nordsrum when they refused to continue to carry Ivanka's fashions, it was because her products were not selling. So on two counts, the comparison is not an apples to apples comparison.
As for the Muslim singer having the right to refuse to sing in a church service, again, one must look for an apples to apples comparison if one wants to compare that with a Christian business refusing to serve a same-sex function. Does the Muslim singer provide his singing as a businessman who serves the general public? If not, there is no apples to apples comparison exists here between his/her refusal and a Christian business owner's refusal to do provide goods and services for the LGBT community or a same-sex function.
As for the Christian business owner who refuses to provide goods and services to a same-sex function because of their personal religious convictions, we must remember that the most apt comparison we can make with this is the Christian business owners who, because of their religious beliefs, refused to serve Blacks during Jim Crow days. Should White Christian business owners have the right to refuse to do business with Blacks for privately held religious reasons? See, here we have more of an apples to apples comparison with Christian business owners' rights to refuse to serve same-sex functions. Why? It is because in both cases, groups from individual consumers are being discriminated against because of their group identity. Allowing such discrimination means that certain kinds of groups of people can suffer partial or full depricvation of goods and services either in isolated locations or throughout the nation in general.
See, the missing ingredient in all of the other examples compared with Christian business owners who refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex functions is the relationship the consumer has with the business refusing a business transaction and the welfare of the group being denied. The way the questions were asked in the video focussed solely on the business owners' concerns; there was no expressed concern for what happens to the other party. And this is what dishonors the Gospel when Christian business owners refuse to provide goods and services to either the LGBT community in general or to same-sex functions. These business owners are only expressing concern for themselves; they are expressing no concern for what potentially can happen to the LGBT community. This is the kind of mistake that Christian business owners made when they refused to serve Blacks or served them in segregated fashion during Jim Crow.
Friday, December 2, 2016
"Mourning" Castro's Death
Jeffrey Salkin (click here and read the first biography) wrote about Fidel Castro's death in a blogpost for Religion News Service (click here for the article). There are two distinct features about his article. With the first attribute, what Salkin took away with one hand he gave back with another. With the second one, Salkin shows that any criticism that significantly relies on decontextualization only serves those who lack self-awareness. And we should note that the lack of self-awareness can produce the kind of pharisaicallism demonstrated in Jesus's parable of the two men praying (click here for the parable). It also allows us to prance around like the emperor who had no clothes.
What does Slakin take away that he gives back? It is his rejoicing over Castro's death. For while Salkin says that rejoicing over the death of one's enemy is against his religion, he gives multiple reasons why he should celebrate Castro's death. The first reason is that Castro introduced Salkin to the fear of death via the Cuban missile crisis. Another reason the significant number of Jewish victims of Castro's revolution. They became victims when they lost their businesses to Castro's nationalization of business. Here, these Jewish victims share some similarities with those Russians who lost their businesses during Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution of October, 1917. Also Jews from Israel have suffered from Castro's support of Palestinian terrorism. However, Salkin is quick to note that Castro also treated Jews with some favorability as demonstrated by his embracing of Jews in Cuba, his allowing for Jewish emigration, and the memorial to the Holocaust located in Havana.
In addition, Salkin condemns the Communism that Castro adhered to. He has attributed, as have several conservatives I have run across, as many as 100 million deaths to Communism. And he unequivocally says 'Communism is a moral and spiritual failure.'
While Salkin gives all of the reasons in the world for why he should rejoice over Castro's death, he says he is prohibited from doing so. Thus, one has to wonder why Salkin lists all of the reasons why he should celebrate Castro's death while saying he doesn't do so. Here we might ask if Salkin himself is as much the focus of this article as Castro is.
As for the second characteristic of this article, we need to look at all of the reasons why Salkin should want to dance on Castro's grave. For example, when Salkin mentions the fear Castro induced via the Cuban Missile Crisis, what he misses is the fact that it was the Soviet Union that put those missiles there because it believed that there was a dangerous, dangerous to them that is, imbalance of power. For not only did the US have far more nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union did, the US had already placed nuclear armed missiles on the USSR's border in Turkey before the USSR even though of placing missiles in Cuba. The American missiles in Turkey posed as much threat to the Soviet Union as the Soviet Union's missiles in Cuba did to the US. This is the first area in which Salkin demonstrates a lack of self-awareness.
Salkin's criticisms of both Communism and Castro's support of terrorism also exhibits a lack of self-awareness. For example, what Salkin calls Communism is really Bolshevism. Here we should note that the Bolsheviks were opposed by the Mensheviks. Both groups claimed to follow Marx. And this is an important point because to be this specific allows us to see that Communism and Socialism are not monoliths. We should also note the criticisms that both Lenin and Stalin received from fellow Marxists. The most telling criticism comes from Rosa Luxemburg when she called Lenin's rule a bourgeoisie dictatorship because the structure of his government imitated the structure practiced by the bourgeoisie in their private sector ventures and businesses (click here). In other words, according to Luxemburg, what Lenin set up in the then new Soviet Union was not a Marxist kind of Socialism. Rather, what he set up was the same kind of rule used by the Tsars. The Tsars practiced totalitarian rule and they were strongly supported by Russia's Capitalists and business owners. Here we should note that what preceded Castro's revolution, a revolution that displaced so many Jewish business owners, was the brutal and corrupt rule of Batista. And we should note that until Castro came onto the scene, the US supported Batista's government.
And while Salkin's criticism of Castro's support of the PLO as a support for terrorism, why can we not make the same claim about any world leader who supports Israel's IDF with military aid? For doesn't the IDF terrorize and kill Palestinian civilians? Here, we should also note that following Castro's revolution but prior to the placing of missiles in Cuba, was not just the Bay of Pigs incident, there were numerous American attacks on Cuban civilian targets. In other words, America practiced terrorism against Castro's Cuba.
It isn't that Castro doesn't deserve to be severely criticized or that Salkin's criticisms of Castro lack merit; it is that before criticizing others, we need to be aware of our own faults and sins. For without that self-awareness, our criticisms can be unduly harsh. In addition, without self-awareness, our criticisms will lack credibility because we are denying the faults and sins that others can clearly see. We saw examples of this during our last presidential election. Both the Republican and Democratic establishments could not derail Donald Trump's candidacy because while correctly noting his faults, they failed to admit their own failures and thus people rejected their messages because that denial of faults meant that there would be no change in the future. And people wanted change.
This denial of faults that stems from a lack of self-awareness that starts with the decontextualization of what Salking was reacting to.
What does Slakin take away that he gives back? It is his rejoicing over Castro's death. For while Salkin says that rejoicing over the death of one's enemy is against his religion, he gives multiple reasons why he should celebrate Castro's death. The first reason is that Castro introduced Salkin to the fear of death via the Cuban missile crisis. Another reason the significant number of Jewish victims of Castro's revolution. They became victims when they lost their businesses to Castro's nationalization of business. Here, these Jewish victims share some similarities with those Russians who lost their businesses during Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution of October, 1917. Also Jews from Israel have suffered from Castro's support of Palestinian terrorism. However, Salkin is quick to note that Castro also treated Jews with some favorability as demonstrated by his embracing of Jews in Cuba, his allowing for Jewish emigration, and the memorial to the Holocaust located in Havana.
In addition, Salkin condemns the Communism that Castro adhered to. He has attributed, as have several conservatives I have run across, as many as 100 million deaths to Communism. And he unequivocally says 'Communism is a moral and spiritual failure.'
While Salkin gives all of the reasons in the world for why he should rejoice over Castro's death, he says he is prohibited from doing so. Thus, one has to wonder why Salkin lists all of the reasons why he should celebrate Castro's death while saying he doesn't do so. Here we might ask if Salkin himself is as much the focus of this article as Castro is.
As for the second characteristic of this article, we need to look at all of the reasons why Salkin should want to dance on Castro's grave. For example, when Salkin mentions the fear Castro induced via the Cuban Missile Crisis, what he misses is the fact that it was the Soviet Union that put those missiles there because it believed that there was a dangerous, dangerous to them that is, imbalance of power. For not only did the US have far more nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union did, the US had already placed nuclear armed missiles on the USSR's border in Turkey before the USSR even though of placing missiles in Cuba. The American missiles in Turkey posed as much threat to the Soviet Union as the Soviet Union's missiles in Cuba did to the US. This is the first area in which Salkin demonstrates a lack of self-awareness.
Salkin's criticisms of both Communism and Castro's support of terrorism also exhibits a lack of self-awareness. For example, what Salkin calls Communism is really Bolshevism. Here we should note that the Bolsheviks were opposed by the Mensheviks. Both groups claimed to follow Marx. And this is an important point because to be this specific allows us to see that Communism and Socialism are not monoliths. We should also note the criticisms that both Lenin and Stalin received from fellow Marxists. The most telling criticism comes from Rosa Luxemburg when she called Lenin's rule a bourgeoisie dictatorship because the structure of his government imitated the structure practiced by the bourgeoisie in their private sector ventures and businesses (click here). In other words, according to Luxemburg, what Lenin set up in the then new Soviet Union was not a Marxist kind of Socialism. Rather, what he set up was the same kind of rule used by the Tsars. The Tsars practiced totalitarian rule and they were strongly supported by Russia's Capitalists and business owners. Here we should note that what preceded Castro's revolution, a revolution that displaced so many Jewish business owners, was the brutal and corrupt rule of Batista. And we should note that until Castro came onto the scene, the US supported Batista's government.
And while Salkin's criticism of Castro's support of the PLO as a support for terrorism, why can we not make the same claim about any world leader who supports Israel's IDF with military aid? For doesn't the IDF terrorize and kill Palestinian civilians? Here, we should also note that following Castro's revolution but prior to the placing of missiles in Cuba, was not just the Bay of Pigs incident, there were numerous American attacks on Cuban civilian targets. In other words, America practiced terrorism against Castro's Cuba.
It isn't that Castro doesn't deserve to be severely criticized or that Salkin's criticisms of Castro lack merit; it is that before criticizing others, we need to be aware of our own faults and sins. For without that self-awareness, our criticisms can be unduly harsh. In addition, without self-awareness, our criticisms will lack credibility because we are denying the faults and sins that others can clearly see. We saw examples of this during our last presidential election. Both the Republican and Democratic establishments could not derail Donald Trump's candidacy because while correctly noting his faults, they failed to admit their own failures and thus people rejected their messages because that denial of faults meant that there would be no change in the future. And people wanted change.
This denial of faults that stems from a lack of self-awareness that starts with the decontextualization of what Salking was reacting to.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
The Conservative Case Against Socialism Is Not Scientific
The Conservative case against Socialism (or what will be referred to here as Communism/Socialism/Marxism) comes in the form of a mantra. It says that Communism/Socialism/Marxism has not only failed wherever it has been tried, it will always fail. For Communism/Socialism/Marxism, according to its Conservative critics, always ends up with two results: totalitarianism and poverty. And to hedge bets, we should note that the West has waged economic and/or even military campaigns against nations that were leaning to the Left or were already there. To prove their claim about Communism/Socialism/Marxism, Conservatives provide a list of those nations that tried it and failed and thus they conclude that it can never succeed. Of course, the list starts with Russia and then includes China, Cuba, Cambodia, and sometimes Venezuela.
But here is a list of Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations that never seem to be included when Conservatives talk about failed Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations: the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution, Iran, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Chile. And these examples represent some different situations than what we've seen in Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia. For example, both the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution were working, though not without problems, until Frances' army and General Franco's Fascist forces overthrew their respective Leftist regimes. Nicaragua deserves speacial attention because its Communist/Socialist/Marxist government was voted out of power, but not before America waged a brutal terrorist and economic war on it. In fact, America was actually condemned by the World Court for its actions in Nicaragua. We should also note that its Leftist government was voted back into power too. And we should also know that Iran, Guatemala, and Chile saw Leftist leaders elected into office. However, America, and Great Britain in the case of Iran, worked first to destabilize and then to overthrow those elected leaders. Except for Guatemala where America simply overthrew the government, and Iran where Great Britain was the nation that worked to destabilized it.
But what of the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and Venezuela? Here we should note that Venezuela's economic problems are in large part due to the drop in oil prices. And despite all of that, along with the alleged cconomic war waged by America, Venezuela is still a democracy where Chavez actually lost an election that would have extended his term as President.
But what about the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia where we've seen the some of the most brutal regimes in history? What we should note about those examples is this: in each case, the Communist/Socialist/Marxist revolutions were preceded by brutally harsh conditions from totalitarian rule and/or outside military action. Russia, for example, had the Tsars prior to their 1917 revolution. In addition, a civil war broke out after the Revolution by the anti-Communist White Movement that was assisted by Western nations. The Marxists remained united behind Lenin until after the war when he not only refused to relinquish the Tsarist powers he acquired during the conflicts, he purged his own party.
In China, though there was a then current movement to install democracy, it was preceded by the rule of warlords and it suffered greatly from horrible atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese during WW II. In Cuba, Castro's revolution overthrew a corrupt American supported dictator and then was met with American attacks on civilian targets such as sugar fields and factories. What followed was an American economic war waged on the island nation while we pointed to the failures of their economy and attributed them solely to Communism/Socialism/Marxism. Finally, Cambodia was experiencing a growing authoritarian rule when its leader allowed Vietnamese Communist forces to hide there. America brutally carpet bombed the land resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands if not at least one hundred thousand civilians. The Khmer Rouge, the Communist Revolutionaries of Cambodia, saw a significant growth in numbers from the bombing.
What does this all have to do with science? The Conservative case is basically a universal declaration stating that Communism/Socialism/Marxism, and there are real distinctions between these terms but for the sake argument all three will be mentioned together, always has and always will result in tyranny and poverty. To prove it, Conservatives list these a few examples. However, a scientific approach to the Conservative claim would not result in reaching the same conclusion. Why? First, the sample size of the nations Conservatives cite is too small. Four or five nations are not enough to say that Communism/Socialism/Marxism will always fail. Second, no control group has been established. Without any control group being established, there is no way to determine if Communism/Socialism/Marxism was the reaason why certain nations ended up with tyranny and poverty. Without a control group, there is no scientific way of isolating variables to determine whether Communism/Socialism/Marxism was solely to blame for the troubles experienced by nations like Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia.
We should also note that the scientific method takes great care to rule out all other possible explanations and variables before concluding that what one has hypothesized is supported by the evidence. Thus, it should be easy to see here that the methodology used by Conservatives to conclude that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always fails is deeply flawed. And we might add that since Conservatives are strong supporters of Capitalism and that Capitalism is the economic system practiced and promoted by those nations that have waged war on left-leaning nations, the objsectivity of those Conservatives who claism that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always has and will fail comes into question.
In addition, left out of this discussion, but of equal importance, is our definition of terms. What is Communism? What is Socialism? What is Marxism? What do they have in common and how are they different? The answers those those questions shall be left as exercises for the reader. However, we should note that at least part of the Conservative mantra is false and this can be shown by counter example. That Communism/Socialism/Marxism always results in tyranny has already been disproven in Nicaragua and could very be proven false by Venezuela. Both nations have working democracies. As for the other possible examples where Communism/Socialism/Marxism may have not produced tyranny and poverty, we will never know. And we will never know because the powers that Conservatives support have overthrown those governments before they had a chance to prove themselves.
But here is a list of Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations that never seem to be included when Conservatives talk about failed Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations: the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution, Iran, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Chile. And these examples represent some different situations than what we've seen in Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia. For example, both the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution were working, though not without problems, until Frances' army and General Franco's Fascist forces overthrew their respective Leftist regimes. Nicaragua deserves speacial attention because its Communist/Socialist/Marxist government was voted out of power, but not before America waged a brutal terrorist and economic war on it. In fact, America was actually condemned by the World Court for its actions in Nicaragua. We should also note that its Leftist government was voted back into power too. And we should also know that Iran, Guatemala, and Chile saw Leftist leaders elected into office. However, America, and Great Britain in the case of Iran, worked first to destabilize and then to overthrow those elected leaders. Except for Guatemala where America simply overthrew the government, and Iran where Great Britain was the nation that worked to destabilized it.
But what of the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and Venezuela? Here we should note that Venezuela's economic problems are in large part due to the drop in oil prices. And despite all of that, along with the alleged cconomic war waged by America, Venezuela is still a democracy where Chavez actually lost an election that would have extended his term as President.
But what about the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia where we've seen the some of the most brutal regimes in history? What we should note about those examples is this: in each case, the Communist/Socialist/Marxist revolutions were preceded by brutally harsh conditions from totalitarian rule and/or outside military action. Russia, for example, had the Tsars prior to their 1917 revolution. In addition, a civil war broke out after the Revolution by the anti-Communist White Movement that was assisted by Western nations. The Marxists remained united behind Lenin until after the war when he not only refused to relinquish the Tsarist powers he acquired during the conflicts, he purged his own party.
In China, though there was a then current movement to install democracy, it was preceded by the rule of warlords and it suffered greatly from horrible atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese during WW II. In Cuba, Castro's revolution overthrew a corrupt American supported dictator and then was met with American attacks on civilian targets such as sugar fields and factories. What followed was an American economic war waged on the island nation while we pointed to the failures of their economy and attributed them solely to Communism/Socialism/Marxism. Finally, Cambodia was experiencing a growing authoritarian rule when its leader allowed Vietnamese Communist forces to hide there. America brutally carpet bombed the land resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands if not at least one hundred thousand civilians. The Khmer Rouge, the Communist Revolutionaries of Cambodia, saw a significant growth in numbers from the bombing.
What does this all have to do with science? The Conservative case is basically a universal declaration stating that Communism/Socialism/Marxism, and there are real distinctions between these terms but for the sake argument all three will be mentioned together, always has and always will result in tyranny and poverty. To prove it, Conservatives list these a few examples. However, a scientific approach to the Conservative claim would not result in reaching the same conclusion. Why? First, the sample size of the nations Conservatives cite is too small. Four or five nations are not enough to say that Communism/Socialism/Marxism will always fail. Second, no control group has been established. Without any control group being established, there is no way to determine if Communism/Socialism/Marxism was the reaason why certain nations ended up with tyranny and poverty. Without a control group, there is no scientific way of isolating variables to determine whether Communism/Socialism/Marxism was solely to blame for the troubles experienced by nations like Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia.
We should also note that the scientific method takes great care to rule out all other possible explanations and variables before concluding that what one has hypothesized is supported by the evidence. Thus, it should be easy to see here that the methodology used by Conservatives to conclude that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always fails is deeply flawed. And we might add that since Conservatives are strong supporters of Capitalism and that Capitalism is the economic system practiced and promoted by those nations that have waged war on left-leaning nations, the objsectivity of those Conservatives who claism that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always has and will fail comes into question.
In addition, left out of this discussion, but of equal importance, is our definition of terms. What is Communism? What is Socialism? What is Marxism? What do they have in common and how are they different? The answers those those questions shall be left as exercises for the reader. However, we should note that at least part of the Conservative mantra is false and this can be shown by counter example. That Communism/Socialism/Marxism always results in tyranny has already been disproven in Nicaragua and could very be proven false by Venezuela. Both nations have working democracies. As for the other possible examples where Communism/Socialism/Marxism may have not produced tyranny and poverty, we will never know. And we will never know because the powers that Conservatives support have overthrown those governments before they had a chance to prove themselves.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 25, 2015
As usual, remember that these comments will contain more grammatical errors than the regular blogposts do. Sorry about that.
Feb 20
I attempted to post the comment below on the Imaginative Conservative blog. Comments might have been closed at the time of my attempt to post the comment below. We should note that there are blogposts on the Imaginative Conservative blog site which were published earlier than the blogpost responded to here which do not have their comments closed.
But we should also note that in another discussion attached to a blogpost on the Imaginative Conservative blog site, my response to the blogpost was posted. And this is despite the fact that the author of the blogpost was very upset with my views. So the omission of the comment below is a rare exception to the practices and policies followed by the Imaginative Conservative blog in its publishing of opposing viewpoints.
To Eric and his comment describing all Socialists as wanting to consolidate all power to themselves. This comment followed Joseph Pearce's blogpost on how the Great Britain has been corrupted by false gods and atheists. This appeared on the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Eric,
Again, in a desire to portray socialists as a monolithic group, you are showing a lack of awareness of what socialists have debated about since the Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution. To help provide some additional information that might challenge that monolithic group some are tempted to give into, I provided the links below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm
Below is a quote from the last link. The writer is a socialist contemporary of Lenin:
and
So the question is in criticizing the regimes like that of the Soviet Union, Red China, and so on, are you criticizing socialism or are you criticizing those who deviated from Socialism but kept the name.
As for my own view, I have a substantial amount of agreement with Luxemburg. But I disagree with her criticisms of Kautsky. That is because Kautsky didn't make socialism his goal, he made it the preferred means in eliminating oppression. At this point Luxemburg was too ideologically tribal to see Kautsky's point.
BTW, after he hijacked the Russian Revolution, Lenin criticized those Russians on the Left who opposed his consolidation of power.
Finally, counterexamples to your description of socialism can be found in the Spanish Revolution and the Paris Communes. Though not perfect, their methodology followed the practice of Socialism to a significant degree as opposed to the Lenin's Soviet Union or Mau's Red China neither of whom followed socialism. BTW, to show that Socialism is not a monolith, there is debate between socialists regarding these issues. Some Socialists do follow Lenin. Some even follow Stalin. But many others do not. So your contention regarding how all socialists behave is neither historically nor theoretically true. And, btw, I am a Christian Fundamentalist and a Socialist. And there are other Christians who are Socialists as well. And many of my fellow Socialists accept me with my faith. In fact, Marx himself never advocated the elimination of religion unlike contemporaries like Bruno Bauer. For Marx, the abolishing of religion was really the abolition of the state from religious control.
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Feb 21
To R. Scott and his blogpost quote comparing political correctness with communist propaganda and declaring that its purpose is to 'humiliate' its opponents. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
There are some problems with what Theodore Dalrymple said in the article quoted from. For example, he described his father as a communist who read people like Plekhanov, Maurice Hindus, and Edgar Snow. At the same time, he reported that his father personally acted like Stalin. But with the people he listed as those who influenced his father, only one of them, Plekhanov, was listed in the www.marxists.org website list of Marxists. And, btw, Plekhanov was opposed to dictators because the workers' interests could not be served by them The two others he listed were reporters who covered different communist areas but were hardly communists that I know of by reading. During WW II, Snow defended allied regimes that were not democratic because of the urgency demanded by the war.
So the question becomes, why is political correctness 'communist propaganda writ small'? Remember that political correctness came into being in order to protect those who were marginalized. And racial slurs were among the first terms deemed politically incorrect. Is that what Dalrymple is protesting? Or is he using these terms pejoratively? And he could do the latter by using these terms to refer exclusively to the extremes and abuses practiced in each group.
Finally, by categorically referring to political correctness and communism the way he does, is Dalrymple practicing what he is condemning? Is he making such a blanket statement about political correctness and associating it with communism in an attempt to 'humiliate' those who align themselves with either political correctness or communism? Whatever the reasons for his statements, he and westerners who agree with him are practicing the same kind of tribalism which he would condemn if it was practiced by any communists. In addition, isn't censoring opinions a way of silencing dissent?
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To Linda Kimball's comment quoting Solzhenitsyyn on Communism and Marx and Lenin's view of God. This was part of the Heidelblog's post on political correctness.
We need to distinguish between the Soviet Union and Marxism. Marx himself was apathetic toward religion. While discussing it with Bruno Bauer, it was Bauer, not Marx, who advocated the eradication of religion. Marx was fine with it existing, he just wanted to see the abolition of the state from religion's control. You can read Marx's view in the link below:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
BTW, this isn't the only point of departure between Marx and the Soviet Union. See the following video links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM
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Feb 24
To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on how we need both economic freedom and other abilities and values to help a society flourish. This appeared on the Acton blog.
Let's remember what economic freedom has become. It has become code for freeing businesses from what society deems as their social responsibilities. Thus, when there is a problem regarding economic freedom, it could be on society's side of demanding too much or demanding the wrong thing. But the problem could also be on the business side of not meeting its legitimate social responsibilities. And when the problem is the latter, then economic freedom translates into privileged status for business elites as they are either harming society by their practices or they are getting a free lunch at society's expense.
A concrete example of such privileged status for some businesses can be found in how some companies use government assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls. Some banks do this as well as some big retail chains. And what happens is that these businesses pay poverty wages that require employees to apply for government programs for help with food assistance, medical care, and so on. Here, we should also check if these same companies are doing what they can to pay the least amount in federal taxes. All of this is being done to maximize profits for the business owners whether the owners are families or shareholders.
The stress which some place on economic freedom is really an argument against democracy and society's right to determine how its members will live with each other. Of course there is the other side of the coin. Societies can make such great demands on businesses that businesses can't survive. But considering that it is those who can afford enough lobbyists who currently have the ear of our government, any overreach from government is not coming from society as a whole, but from those with the most lobbyists.
So here, we might want to review whether the same culture that puts so much stress on economic freedom will also result in volunteerism and generosity, positive creativity, and values or does the current stress on economic freedom work against these other would be cultural assets. For here, if business does not fulfill its legitimate social responsibilities, then these other assets are part of the free lunch business is enjoying at society's expense.
Feb 20
I attempted to post the comment below on the Imaginative Conservative blog. Comments might have been closed at the time of my attempt to post the comment below. We should note that there are blogposts on the Imaginative Conservative blog site which were published earlier than the blogpost responded to here which do not have their comments closed.
But we should also note that in another discussion attached to a blogpost on the Imaginative Conservative blog site, my response to the blogpost was posted. And this is despite the fact that the author of the blogpost was very upset with my views. So the omission of the comment below is a rare exception to the practices and policies followed by the Imaginative Conservative blog in its publishing of opposing viewpoints.
To Eric and his comment describing all Socialists as wanting to consolidate all power to themselves. This comment followed Joseph Pearce's blogpost on how the Great Britain has been corrupted by false gods and atheists. This appeared on the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Eric,
Again, in a desire to portray socialists as a monolithic group, you are showing a lack of awareness of what socialists have debated about since the Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution. To help provide some additional information that might challenge that monolithic group some are tempted to give into, I provided the links below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm
Below is a quote from the last link. The writer is a socialist contemporary of Lenin:
Lenin and Trotsky, on the other hand, decide in favor of dictatorship in contradistinction to democracy, and thereby, in favor of the dictatorship of a handful of persons, that is, in favor of dictatorship on the bourgeois model.
and
But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.
So the question is in criticizing the regimes like that of the Soviet Union, Red China, and so on, are you criticizing socialism or are you criticizing those who deviated from Socialism but kept the name.
As for my own view, I have a substantial amount of agreement with Luxemburg. But I disagree with her criticisms of Kautsky. That is because Kautsky didn't make socialism his goal, he made it the preferred means in eliminating oppression. At this point Luxemburg was too ideologically tribal to see Kautsky's point.
BTW, after he hijacked the Russian Revolution, Lenin criticized those Russians on the Left who opposed his consolidation of power.
Finally, counterexamples to your description of socialism can be found in the Spanish Revolution and the Paris Communes. Though not perfect, their methodology followed the practice of Socialism to a significant degree as opposed to the Lenin's Soviet Union or Mau's Red China neither of whom followed socialism. BTW, to show that Socialism is not a monolith, there is debate between socialists regarding these issues. Some Socialists do follow Lenin. Some even follow Stalin. But many others do not. So your contention regarding how all socialists behave is neither historically nor theoretically true. And, btw, I am a Christian Fundamentalist and a Socialist. And there are other Christians who are Socialists as well. And many of my fellow Socialists accept me with my faith. In fact, Marx himself never advocated the elimination of religion unlike contemporaries like Bruno Bauer. For Marx, the abolishing of religion was really the abolition of the state from religious control.
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Feb 21
To R. Scott and his blogpost quote comparing political correctness with communist propaganda and declaring that its purpose is to 'humiliate' its opponents. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
There are some problems with what Theodore Dalrymple said in the article quoted from. For example, he described his father as a communist who read people like Plekhanov, Maurice Hindus, and Edgar Snow. At the same time, he reported that his father personally acted like Stalin. But with the people he listed as those who influenced his father, only one of them, Plekhanov, was listed in the www.marxists.org website list of Marxists. And, btw, Plekhanov was opposed to dictators because the workers' interests could not be served by them The two others he listed were reporters who covered different communist areas but were hardly communists that I know of by reading. During WW II, Snow defended allied regimes that were not democratic because of the urgency demanded by the war.
So the question becomes, why is political correctness 'communist propaganda writ small'? Remember that political correctness came into being in order to protect those who were marginalized. And racial slurs were among the first terms deemed politically incorrect. Is that what Dalrymple is protesting? Or is he using these terms pejoratively? And he could do the latter by using these terms to refer exclusively to the extremes and abuses practiced in each group.
Finally, by categorically referring to political correctness and communism the way he does, is Dalrymple practicing what he is condemning? Is he making such a blanket statement about political correctness and associating it with communism in an attempt to 'humiliate' those who align themselves with either political correctness or communism? Whatever the reasons for his statements, he and westerners who agree with him are practicing the same kind of tribalism which he would condemn if it was practiced by any communists. In addition, isn't censoring opinions a way of silencing dissent?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Linda Kimball's comment quoting Solzhenitsyyn on Communism and Marx and Lenin's view of God. This was part of the Heidelblog's post on political correctness.
We need to distinguish between the Soviet Union and Marxism. Marx himself was apathetic toward religion. While discussing it with Bruno Bauer, it was Bauer, not Marx, who advocated the eradication of religion. Marx was fine with it existing, he just wanted to see the abolition of the state from religion's control. You can read Marx's view in the link below:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
BTW, this isn't the only point of departure between Marx and the Soviet Union. See the following video links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 24
To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on how we need both economic freedom and other abilities and values to help a society flourish. This appeared on the Acton blog.
Let's remember what economic freedom has become. It has become code for freeing businesses from what society deems as their social responsibilities. Thus, when there is a problem regarding economic freedom, it could be on society's side of demanding too much or demanding the wrong thing. But the problem could also be on the business side of not meeting its legitimate social responsibilities. And when the problem is the latter, then economic freedom translates into privileged status for business elites as they are either harming society by their practices or they are getting a free lunch at society's expense.
A concrete example of such privileged status for some businesses can be found in how some companies use government assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls. Some banks do this as well as some big retail chains. And what happens is that these businesses pay poverty wages that require employees to apply for government programs for help with food assistance, medical care, and so on. Here, we should also check if these same companies are doing what they can to pay the least amount in federal taxes. All of this is being done to maximize profits for the business owners whether the owners are families or shareholders.
The stress which some place on economic freedom is really an argument against democracy and society's right to determine how its members will live with each other. Of course there is the other side of the coin. Societies can make such great demands on businesses that businesses can't survive. But considering that it is those who can afford enough lobbyists who currently have the ear of our government, any overreach from government is not coming from society as a whole, but from those with the most lobbyists.
So here, we might want to review whether the same culture that puts so much stress on economic freedom will also result in volunteerism and generosity, positive creativity, and values or does the current stress on economic freedom work against these other would be cultural assets. For here, if business does not fulfill its legitimate social responsibilities, then these other assets are part of the free lunch business is enjoying at society's expense.
Friday, March 14, 2014
R.C.Sproul Vs Martin Luther King On Karl Marx
We've all heard the name of Karl Marx, but do we really know what his beliefs were? If we equate the Soviet Union and its kind of government and economy with Marx, we will claim to have known him, but our claims will be delusional.
To know Marx, one must read him, and that can be a challenge considering one's knowledge of history and the issues. But he is worth reading just to know who he really is.
Two people who have read some of his works and have commented on them are R.C. Sproul Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. The bulk of Sproul's available comment's can be found in his book, The Consequence Of Ideas (click here). King's review of Marx can be found at this link starting with page 92.
The difference in the reviews stems from their views of Capitalism. Sproul shows that he is a product of Capitalist ideology. It is not that he doesn't criticize Capitalism; but it is that the criticisms he expresses, at least in his review of Marx, are concerning aberrations of Capitalism, not its principles. King, on the other hand, is able to look at Marx from both a nonCapitalist position as well as Capitalist one. Thus King has a broader perspective of Marx and Communism while most of Sproul's concerns are, for the most part, parochial.
Sproul first gives background information on Marx including pertinent information on perhaps the beginning of Marx's rejection of religion. Then Sproul talks about some of Marx's views on labor and the Industrial Revolution. From there Sproul describes Marx's views on man's alienation. Interspersed with these remarks are Sproul's defense of or comparing Marx's views with Capitalism.
According to Sproul, Marx saw the Industrial Revolution as putting our humanity at risk. However, Sproul says little about Marx's view of the marketplace which, under Capitalism, was profound in how it changed man's relation with others, and pervasive in that the markets went global and those countries that did not welcome the markets put themselves risk of being left behind. In addition, Sproul didn't mention how Marx saw the Bourgeoisie's use of the markets and production as making society and our social relationships volatile because they were constantly changing.
In addition, Spoul left out the details as to how the worker and his labor became a commodity to the owner of capital or business owner. It is because as the worker is paid by the unit, his labor becomes like all commodities that are paid for by the unit. This makes the worker disposable, as well as his community which is supported by what he earns, because if a business owner can find cheaper labor, the current worker can be let go just as a business owner might buy a certain commodity from another vendor if that vendor was selling the commodity, like sugar, at a cheaper price.
As Sproul describes how Marx sees man as being separated from the "fruit of his labor" because of the lack of ownership, Sproul goes into a defense of Capitalism. He talks about how even executives are not owners unless they possess shares of stock in the company and that even low-wage earners can also be owners by owning stock. At this point, we have to ask if what Marx emphasized about the need for worker control has totally escaped Sproul's attention. For owning stock per se doesn't solve the problem Marx saw because it doesn't give workers control. That control is for those with wealth who can afford to own a large percentage of shares. So owning a few shares of stock does not change the status of the worker. In addition, as Chomsky has pointed out, a worker who owns stock in the company in his own company must root against his own best interests. This is because one of the ways a worker can gain a bigger return on the stock he owns is if the company cuts his wages so that it makes a bigger profit.
Sproul extols on how, in Capitalism, one's wealth works for the owner just as the land works for the farmer. And though here, he is talking about owning stock, he also then portrays the actual owner of a business as someone who deserves what rewards he/she can take because of the risk he/she is taking. That is because a high percentage of businesses fail after so many years. When this happens, the owner can lose everything. As true as that is, Sproul says nothing about how workers risk their future by devoting themselves to companies that could fail.
Sproul also remarks on Marx describing how man is separated from himself because his labor is "forced." For if man doesn't work for a business, he can no longer exist. Sproul goes on to say that, according to Marx, man is also alienated because he loses his creative freedom.
Finally, Sproul describes Marx's final alienation as a separation from others because his labor if for and is owned by others.
In commenting about how Capitalism divides people into the owners and the workers, Sproul is quick to comment on how Marx failed to see the emergence of the Middle Class. This is an odd comment simply because 1) Marx mentions the Middle Class multiple times in his writings, and 2) America's past shows that part of its Middle Class came about through harsh and sometimes violent labor struggles where the police often sided with business owners. Labor struggles are not a part of Capitalism but are praised by Marx. In addition, Marx saw different levels of classes rather than just the rich and the poor.
Sproul goes on to describe what he saw as Marx's failed attempt to provide an alternative for how value is determined in a Capitalist system. Then Sproul almost chides Marx for predicting that workers would suffer losses in a Capitalist system. Sproul attributes this to believing a "myth" that says that one can only get rich at the expense of others. Considering that we live in a world of finite resources with a marketplace that revolves around competition, it is difficult to not see any truth in the "myth."
Now we should note that Sproul's book came out in 2000. Since then, we had an economic collapse where millions of people lost both jobs and their homes and most of the recovery has been enjoyed by the rich. And it seems that Sproul had not noticed that the wages for the bottom 90% of the population have stagnated since 1973. In addition, Sproul seems unaware of the laborers who are invisible stakeholders in the Capitalist endeavor. These are those who work in foreign sweatshops for meager pay and in horrid conditions because of the lack of government regulations or enforcement.
What Sproul also seems unaware of is how American intervention has led to proxy rulers who have given America cheap access to the raw resources of other countries. Though Sproul correctly gives Marx points for foreseeing the practice of Crony Capitalism, he seems to be blind to the extent that Crony Capitalism exists and that the profit motive might make any other form of Capitalism impossible. At this point, we might ask Sproul, if Crony Capitalism is the real source of our prosperity and greater wealth, is such Capitalism then justified because of its results?
It isn't until the very end where Sproul rightly states that some of the basic tenets of Marxism are contrary to the Bible. He then adds that Marx's goal was the abolishment of private property and yet Sproul seems unaware of why or what that meant. Marx's contention was that private property, whether personal or business, was often used to control others and if one breaks that control, one has, in an ideal sense, abolished private property. Marx gives some states in America as examples of where private property was so abolished in his essay, On The Jewish Question (click here).
So, though Sproul can give a competent and useful summary of some of what Marx said, his analysis is limited because of his inability to step outside of the system in which he resides and benefits from.
Now compare the analysis above with that of Martin Luther King Jr.'s. King immediately condemns Marx's materialistic reductionism as a rejection of God, his ends justifies the means relativism because the "ends are preexistent in the means," and Communism's totalitarianism. Though we should note that not all who are on the Left here see that totalitarianism as representing Marx and Socialism. King goes on to condemn Marxism because of its blindness to how life is "individual and personal." That goes back to the existence of God and man being made in the image of God.
However, King was also able to see some of the problems Marx saw in Capitalism--this is in contrast to Sproul who could only see abuses in Capitalism. King saw that just as Marxism had filtered out the individual to focus on the collective, Capitalism did the same to collective and the social in order to focus on the individual. In contrast to that King saw the need for a synthesis that included both the collective and the individual which is what he might call a mixing of the best of both worlds.
In addition, King saw Capitalism as being as materialistic as Communism--what could one expect when Capitalism's claim to fame is in the amount of prosperity it has brought to the world. King saw the materialism in Capitalism as being as dangerous as that which is in Marxism.
Finally, King also understood the appeal of Marxism and Communism. For all of his heresies, according to King, Marx was concerned about the sufferings of the "underprivileged." That isn't the concern of Capitalism. Apologists for Capitalism see it lifting everybody up as a side effect. But that isn't what has happened everywhere in the past or is taking place today.
If we doubt Marx when he associated wars with Capitalism, all we need to do is to read former Marine Corps General Smedley Butler as he wrote about American interventions before WWII (click here and there) and historian William Blum as he documents the 50+ post WWII interventions (click here). Then if we look at wages, we see how globalization has lowered them for both low-skilled as well as technical jobs by both increasing the labor supply and by expanding the labor market to where there are fewer, if any, protective regulations for workers. We can also examine how Capitalism has ravaged the environment especially in its hunt for energy. Visits to some fracking sites as well as surveying the areas where mountaintop removal is used to mine for coal can sometimes give us living pictures of miniature apocalypses.
Both King and Marx saw Capitalism as reducing relationships to one of "self-interest" and the "profit motive." For King, this makes us thing-oriented rather than person-oriented. But the moral of the story here is about perspective. When one cannot look at one's own system from the outside and adequately criticize it, one's view of the world suffers from a kind of tunnel vision. So much of the world becomes obscure to us because of our focus. And this is the key difference between King's and Sproul's reviews Marx.
King can both criticize and commend Marx from a nonCapitalist viewpoint. Sproul's attachment to Capitalism prevents him from seeing many of Marx's detriments and contributions outside of how it relates to Capitalism. The result is that King can see the strengths and weaknesses of both Capitalism and Communism. In contrast to King, Sproul is somewhat like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable of the two men praying. Sproul can both thank God that he is not a Marxist and praise God for all of Capitalism's benefits. But remember that it wasn't the Pharisee who went home justified.
To know Marx, one must read him, and that can be a challenge considering one's knowledge of history and the issues. But he is worth reading just to know who he really is.
Two people who have read some of his works and have commented on them are R.C. Sproul Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. The bulk of Sproul's available comment's can be found in his book, The Consequence Of Ideas (click here). King's review of Marx can be found at this link starting with page 92.
The difference in the reviews stems from their views of Capitalism. Sproul shows that he is a product of Capitalist ideology. It is not that he doesn't criticize Capitalism; but it is that the criticisms he expresses, at least in his review of Marx, are concerning aberrations of Capitalism, not its principles. King, on the other hand, is able to look at Marx from both a nonCapitalist position as well as Capitalist one. Thus King has a broader perspective of Marx and Communism while most of Sproul's concerns are, for the most part, parochial.
Sproul first gives background information on Marx including pertinent information on perhaps the beginning of Marx's rejection of religion. Then Sproul talks about some of Marx's views on labor and the Industrial Revolution. From there Sproul describes Marx's views on man's alienation. Interspersed with these remarks are Sproul's defense of or comparing Marx's views with Capitalism.
According to Sproul, Marx saw the Industrial Revolution as putting our humanity at risk. However, Sproul says little about Marx's view of the marketplace which, under Capitalism, was profound in how it changed man's relation with others, and pervasive in that the markets went global and those countries that did not welcome the markets put themselves risk of being left behind. In addition, Sproul didn't mention how Marx saw the Bourgeoisie's use of the markets and production as making society and our social relationships volatile because they were constantly changing.
In addition, Spoul left out the details as to how the worker and his labor became a commodity to the owner of capital or business owner. It is because as the worker is paid by the unit, his labor becomes like all commodities that are paid for by the unit. This makes the worker disposable, as well as his community which is supported by what he earns, because if a business owner can find cheaper labor, the current worker can be let go just as a business owner might buy a certain commodity from another vendor if that vendor was selling the commodity, like sugar, at a cheaper price.
As Sproul describes how Marx sees man as being separated from the "fruit of his labor" because of the lack of ownership, Sproul goes into a defense of Capitalism. He talks about how even executives are not owners unless they possess shares of stock in the company and that even low-wage earners can also be owners by owning stock. At this point, we have to ask if what Marx emphasized about the need for worker control has totally escaped Sproul's attention. For owning stock per se doesn't solve the problem Marx saw because it doesn't give workers control. That control is for those with wealth who can afford to own a large percentage of shares. So owning a few shares of stock does not change the status of the worker. In addition, as Chomsky has pointed out, a worker who owns stock in the company in his own company must root against his own best interests. This is because one of the ways a worker can gain a bigger return on the stock he owns is if the company cuts his wages so that it makes a bigger profit.
Sproul extols on how, in Capitalism, one's wealth works for the owner just as the land works for the farmer. And though here, he is talking about owning stock, he also then portrays the actual owner of a business as someone who deserves what rewards he/she can take because of the risk he/she is taking. That is because a high percentage of businesses fail after so many years. When this happens, the owner can lose everything. As true as that is, Sproul says nothing about how workers risk their future by devoting themselves to companies that could fail.
Sproul also remarks on Marx describing how man is separated from himself because his labor is "forced." For if man doesn't work for a business, he can no longer exist. Sproul goes on to say that, according to Marx, man is also alienated because he loses his creative freedom.
Finally, Sproul describes Marx's final alienation as a separation from others because his labor if for and is owned by others.
In commenting about how Capitalism divides people into the owners and the workers, Sproul is quick to comment on how Marx failed to see the emergence of the Middle Class. This is an odd comment simply because 1) Marx mentions the Middle Class multiple times in his writings, and 2) America's past shows that part of its Middle Class came about through harsh and sometimes violent labor struggles where the police often sided with business owners. Labor struggles are not a part of Capitalism but are praised by Marx. In addition, Marx saw different levels of classes rather than just the rich and the poor.
Sproul goes on to describe what he saw as Marx's failed attempt to provide an alternative for how value is determined in a Capitalist system. Then Sproul almost chides Marx for predicting that workers would suffer losses in a Capitalist system. Sproul attributes this to believing a "myth" that says that one can only get rich at the expense of others. Considering that we live in a world of finite resources with a marketplace that revolves around competition, it is difficult to not see any truth in the "myth."
Now we should note that Sproul's book came out in 2000. Since then, we had an economic collapse where millions of people lost both jobs and their homes and most of the recovery has been enjoyed by the rich. And it seems that Sproul had not noticed that the wages for the bottom 90% of the population have stagnated since 1973. In addition, Sproul seems unaware of the laborers who are invisible stakeholders in the Capitalist endeavor. These are those who work in foreign sweatshops for meager pay and in horrid conditions because of the lack of government regulations or enforcement.
What Sproul also seems unaware of is how American intervention has led to proxy rulers who have given America cheap access to the raw resources of other countries. Though Sproul correctly gives Marx points for foreseeing the practice of Crony Capitalism, he seems to be blind to the extent that Crony Capitalism exists and that the profit motive might make any other form of Capitalism impossible. At this point, we might ask Sproul, if Crony Capitalism is the real source of our prosperity and greater wealth, is such Capitalism then justified because of its results?
It isn't until the very end where Sproul rightly states that some of the basic tenets of Marxism are contrary to the Bible. He then adds that Marx's goal was the abolishment of private property and yet Sproul seems unaware of why or what that meant. Marx's contention was that private property, whether personal or business, was often used to control others and if one breaks that control, one has, in an ideal sense, abolished private property. Marx gives some states in America as examples of where private property was so abolished in his essay, On The Jewish Question (click here).
So, though Sproul can give a competent and useful summary of some of what Marx said, his analysis is limited because of his inability to step outside of the system in which he resides and benefits from.
Now compare the analysis above with that of Martin Luther King Jr.'s. King immediately condemns Marx's materialistic reductionism as a rejection of God, his ends justifies the means relativism because the "ends are preexistent in the means," and Communism's totalitarianism. Though we should note that not all who are on the Left here see that totalitarianism as representing Marx and Socialism. King goes on to condemn Marxism because of its blindness to how life is "individual and personal." That goes back to the existence of God and man being made in the image of God.
However, King was also able to see some of the problems Marx saw in Capitalism--this is in contrast to Sproul who could only see abuses in Capitalism. King saw that just as Marxism had filtered out the individual to focus on the collective, Capitalism did the same to collective and the social in order to focus on the individual. In contrast to that King saw the need for a synthesis that included both the collective and the individual which is what he might call a mixing of the best of both worlds.
In addition, King saw Capitalism as being as materialistic as Communism--what could one expect when Capitalism's claim to fame is in the amount of prosperity it has brought to the world. King saw the materialism in Capitalism as being as dangerous as that which is in Marxism.
Finally, King also understood the appeal of Marxism and Communism. For all of his heresies, according to King, Marx was concerned about the sufferings of the "underprivileged." That isn't the concern of Capitalism. Apologists for Capitalism see it lifting everybody up as a side effect. But that isn't what has happened everywhere in the past or is taking place today.
If we doubt Marx when he associated wars with Capitalism, all we need to do is to read former Marine Corps General Smedley Butler as he wrote about American interventions before WWII (click here and there) and historian William Blum as he documents the 50+ post WWII interventions (click here). Then if we look at wages, we see how globalization has lowered them for both low-skilled as well as technical jobs by both increasing the labor supply and by expanding the labor market to where there are fewer, if any, protective regulations for workers. We can also examine how Capitalism has ravaged the environment especially in its hunt for energy. Visits to some fracking sites as well as surveying the areas where mountaintop removal is used to mine for coal can sometimes give us living pictures of miniature apocalypses.
Both King and Marx saw Capitalism as reducing relationships to one of "self-interest" and the "profit motive." For King, this makes us thing-oriented rather than person-oriented. But the moral of the story here is about perspective. When one cannot look at one's own system from the outside and adequately criticize it, one's view of the world suffers from a kind of tunnel vision. So much of the world becomes obscure to us because of our focus. And this is the key difference between King's and Sproul's reviews Marx.
King can both criticize and commend Marx from a nonCapitalist viewpoint. Sproul's attachment to Capitalism prevents him from seeing many of Marx's detriments and contributions outside of how it relates to Capitalism. The result is that King can see the strengths and weaknesses of both Capitalism and Communism. In contrast to King, Sproul is somewhat like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable of the two men praying. Sproul can both thank God that he is not a Marxist and praise God for all of Capitalism's benefits. But remember that it wasn't the Pharisee who went home justified.
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