Einstein; The Socialist

[Die Rote Fahne]

This is only current news to me, but Albert Einstein was a socialist.

You can find the article by searching "Monthly Review Einstein Why Socialism" into Google.

[New Tet]

Einstein, perhaps the smartest guy of the 20th Century, was a socialist. Great endorsement!

¿Por qué el socialismo?

http://www.marxists.org/espanol/einstein/por_que.htm

[Q]

Some of Einsteins writings on the English version of MIA (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/index.htm).

[Manifesto]

I just found this out too like a week ago too. Now whenever someone says Socialism cannot work I will use Einstein.

[SoupIsGoodFood]

He was also a zionist too, according to wikipedia.

[Q]

He was also a zionist too, according to wikipedia.
Wikipedia is, as is more often the case, inaccurate.

Here is a read about his stances (http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/writings/other/einstein.htm).

[New Tet]

He was also a zionist too, according to wikipedia.

Goes to show that nobody's perfect, even a great genius like Einstein.

Carl Sagan was a socialist too. In one of his first interviews on the newly founded CNN, Ted Turner challenged him on the question. If my understanding of socialism is anywhere near correct, I'd say that Sagan's answer was in the affirmative. Check out 6:10 of this interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj_MZ6i5Dr0&feature=related

[New Tet]

Lets face it. Sagan was not really a socialist, but was a liberal leftist who believed that its all about the "government" doing good and solving the problems of society. Einstein OTH definitely went ahead into actual socialist thinking but his views were not perfect. However his views are definitely encouraging for many budding socialists of today.

I don't understand your objection about "government". Socialism will require a government interested in "doing good and solving the problems of society."

Einstein did and said very little about socialism; he was too busy with a lifetime of study, speculation, publication and teaching in his chosen field: physics.

That partly explains why he said and wrote so little about the subject of socialism.

If you take the totality of Sagan's writings and comments on social issues, you can easily surmise that, at least in his own mind, he opposed capitalism and favored some form of socialism.

Also, do you honestly think that a man capable of understanding Einstein's most complex ideas and convey them with elegant simplicity would miss having read his essay on socialism?

To underestimate genius is worse than not being able to see it.

[Yehuda Stern]

1. Einstein wasn't a Zionist, but he did accept the Zionist state as an accomplished fact - unfortunately, so do many supposed revolutionary leftists, including people who write here. However, he did oppose the more reactionary elements of the Zionist movement - he signed, along with Hannah Arendt and others, a letter condemning the fascist Herut party, led by Menachem Begin.

2. It's a bit of a stretch to say Einstein was a socialist. He wasn't in the sense that anyone here considers himself a socialist. He was a social-democrat, who believed in evolutionary socialism. I don't know how people can so easily embrace a person who was instrumental in developing the USA's nuclear weapons, later used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

3. Einstein's incredible contribution to physics cannot be denied, but even if one accepts him as a socialist, this is hardly proof of the virtues of socialism. Many more great physicists were bourgeois conservatives and even pro-Nazis than leftists.

[Dave B]

The FBI had a huge file on him that was made public recently, there is one resume of it below;

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html)

It is online but I have not read it.

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm (http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm)

I believe there is quite a bit of his private political material that has been ‘suppressed’ and is in some archive, perhaps Princetons, that is supposed to be interesting.

.

The same is true I believe of the all American Hero ‘Mark Twain’ or Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who later developed some inconvenient opinions of his own as well.

.

[Die Rote Fahne]

He was also a zionist too, according to wikipedia.


He was a Zionist.

But he was the classical Zionist. Just a Jewish homeland.

Not the modern day Israel should be protected by everyone because Zombie Jesus will return there and that they can do no wrong and Palestinians are an actual threat Zionist.

I disagree in with any homeland based on ethnicity, but meh. He was old school.

[New Tet]

1. Einstein wasn't a Zionist, but he did accept the Zionist state as an accomplished fact - unfortunately, so do many supposed revolutionary leftists, including people who write here. However, he did oppose the more reactionary elements of the Zionist movement - he signed, along with Hannah Arendt and others, a letter condemning the fascist Herut party, led by Menachem Begin.

Einstein and Arendt should be congratulated for their timely and principled rejection of the bacillus of terrorism planted deep within the heart of Zionism (as I'm sure they were by American and European socialists of his time).

Unfortunately, it didn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of the actual outcome of the U.S./Zionist ongoing experiment.

Most people are generally unaccustomed to look deep into the heart of things. Einstein, who gained his reputation looking deep into the heart of matter, quickly saw what was the matter at the heart of Zionism.


2. It's a bit of a stretch to say Einstein was a socialist. He wasn't in the sense that anyone here considers himself a socialist. He was a social-democrat, who believed in evolutionary socialism. I don't know how people can so easily embrace a person who was instrumental in developing the USA's nuclear weapons, later used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not having read a full biography of Einstein, I'll speculate that Einstein was, at the very least, an Artel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative)socialist; an Agrarian Communard, to put it in juxtaposing terms.

Probably This comes from the fact that in the mid 19th C., many middle- class Jews still had a profound idelogical affection for the Guild and rural Commune societies their progeny arose from. Tolstoy had a hand in creating and feeding this mythos, I believe

That is why anyone who knew and understood Einstein's ethnic origin could have easily seduced him into supporting Zionist projects with talk about building kibbutzim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz) in the 'new Palestine'.


3. Einstein's incredible contribution to physics cannot be denied, but even if one accepts him as a socialist, this is hardly proof of the virtues of socialism. Many more great physicists were bourgeois conservatives and even pro-Nazis than leftists.

I would truly have to question the academic credential of a 'great physicist' who supported fascism. My understanding is that most great men of science have often rotated in the opposite direction of things.

You're right in saying that Eisntein's endorsement of Socialism, in and of itself, is no argument in favor of its cause. But despite that, and despite what the possible ethno-sociological origins of his affection for socialism may actually have been, you have to admit that everything he says in his essay, is true and correct.


Can I have an Amen! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen) on that?

[Yehuda Stern]

Most people are generally unaccustomed to look deep into the heart of things. Einstein, who gained his reputation looking deep into the heart of matter, quickly saw what was the matter at the heart of Zionism.

Well, no, no he didn't. He in fact thought that Zionism could be progressive or peaceful, and only condemned in principle its fascist wing.


That is why anyone who knew and understood Einstein's ethnic origin could have easily seduced him into supporting Zionist projects with talk about building kibbutzim (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz) in the 'new Palestine'.

Well, that's just offensive.


I would truly have to question the academic credential of a 'great physicist' who supported fascism. My understanding is that most great men of science have often rotated in the opposite direction of things.

I'm afraid the academic credential of Heisenberg and others is far beyond what you choose to question.

[New Tet]

Well, that's just offensive.

I agree. And to prove it, I'll purse my lips and cast upon it a disapproving frown in solidarity with your feelings of offense, comrade.

[ZeroNowhere]

I just found this out too like a week ago too. Now whenever someone says Socialism cannot work I will use Einstein.
Socialism can't work due to human nature!
But Einstein was a socialist!
...And?