Marxism and ¨Freedom¨

[reort]

Why is Marxism or Socialism seen as anti-freedom by pretty much everyone? Could someone explain this to me? Is it true? I don´t know much about Marxism or Socialism.

[X5N]

Because Marxism and it's opposition to private property, support for worker self-management, and such is seen as threatening by the bourgeois, who subsequently propagandize until every level of society responds to the word "Marxism" as if someone just said a dirty word.

[Dunk]

Because we plan to deprive people the freedom to exploit us

That and 20th century Stalinist nation-states I suspect structually couldnt afford to allow other bourgeois freedoms

[Caj]

Because socialism is antithetical to the freedom of the bourgeoisie, and, as Marx said in The Communist Manifesto, "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."

[Eagle_Syr]

Misconceptions on the part of a deliberately misguided population.

Just look at how many people equate liberalism and the Democrats with socialism.

[The Idler]

Because censorship and oppression is done in the name of Marxism originating from thinking in the Soviet Union and carried out by proxies in the rest of the world.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Because censorship and oppression is done in the name of Marxism originating from thinking in the Soviet Union and carried out by proxies in the rest of the world.

Yeah it's both because of bourgeois fears of loosing their ruling position ("freedom") but also because of the real experience of so-called socialist countries. The capitalist ruling class have all sorts of anti-communist/anarchist fear-mongering arguments: we'll cause chaos; workers are unfit and too stupid to know how to run things; we'll degrade "good morals"; etc. The "communism"="dictatorship and crackdowns on freedom" has been their most effective argument since WWII because, if communism=USSR or the other countries that followed that model, then that argument can make some traction with regular people because of the actual record of abuses in these countries.

If the capitalists said that they want the "freedom" for the US elite to tell people in poor countries how to use their resources and what economic policies they should have or the "freedom" to fire people in the US whenever they want; then it's not very convincing to the regular US population, so instead they just conflate bourgeois economic freedoms with with social and political freedom. The reverse is true: the capitalists obviously don't really care about repression, forced labor, or gulags since most capitalist countries have their own versions of more or less the same things, so it's really the loss of their power that they fear. That's a hard line to sell to the public, so again, they conflate "freedom" in the economic sense with freedoms from repression for regular people.

[The Idler]

To take a few examples from The Future Socialist Society by John Molyneux (http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/future-socialist-society.html);
"If absolutely necessary [workers] will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads"
"The Bolsheviks had no choice but to introduce a highly authoritarian regime"
"There will not be complete universal suffrage because the nature of the system will exclude the old bourgeoisie and its main associates from the electoral process"

[Jimmie Higgins]

To take a few examples from The Future Socialist Society by John Molyneux (http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/future-socialist-society.html);
"If absolutely necessary [workers] will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads"
"The Bolsheviks had no choice but to introduce a highly authoritarian regime"
"There will not be complete universal suffrage because the nature of the system will exclude the old bourgeoisie and its main associates from the electoral process"
Yes this is a good example of how quotes can be cherry-picked and made to fit into a stereotype of "authoritarian commies".

If you read this:

"If absolutely necessary [workers] will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads"You get a much different impression than if you read it in context:


"Of course, the ability of workers to run industry is often doubted. 'There will have to be experts', is the cry, 'and it is the experts who will really control things.'

This underestimates the abilities of the working class and misunderstands the role of technical experts. Even under capitalism it is generally the workers, not management, who have the best grasp of the immediate production process. Many of the skills of management are concerned not with production but with marketing and maintaining the rate of exploitation - skills which will be redundant in the new society.

As for the layer of technical experts, they will be necessary for a period until the education of workers is dramatically improved. But they will simply work for and under the direction of the factory or industrial council just as today they work for the bosses. If they obstruct and sabotage, they will be disciplined and dealt with, just as they are if they obstruct and sabotage a capitalist firm.

If absolutely necessary they [petty-bourgeois professionals] will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads, but in fact it is reasonable to suppose a victorious socialist revolution will win over a majority of such people."

[GerrardWinstanley]

It is a cliche to say it, but Marxism has a very different concept of freedom to the liberal democratic understanding of freedom which dominates in our culture. What Marx shared in common with Rousseau and Hegel was that freedom of choice --the freedom to say yes or no-- alone was insufficient for true freedom. For Rousseau and Hegel in particular, this was seen to make their philosophy authoritarian and obscurantist.

But to say that choice is what makes us free, I think, is to beg the question, how are you really free if at every moment, you are deceived and bombarded with falsehoods? And what if every choice we were presented with in an ostensibly 'free' society were completely meaninglesg?

[Anarpest]

Capitalist freedom is ultimately based on the freedom from other people, on the freedom from social determination, whereas socialism is based on freedom which only exists through relations with other people. Of course, capitalist freedom doesn't really overcome social determination, it just pretends that it isn't there.

[wsg1991]

i think there is some misconception here , as Liberals do let's divide this freedom into economic freedom and political freedom . it's clear that socialists concept of economic freedom is quite different from the capitalist one .

i personally see no difference between the bourgeois and the boss they appoint at work place and the political monarchy system system and divine rights thing


what about Political freedoms ? i wanna see your opinions

[TheAltruist]

"Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."- Mikhail Bakunin.

All I have to say on the topic.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Capitalism offers no freedom, not for the workers, at-least. The problem with Marxism, from my perspective, is the use of an authoritarian state ruled by the intelligentsia. Of course, we must assay the material conditions regarding 'Marxist' states, but I don't think we'll need such chaos in the Western World.

[Psy]

Because of the petit-bourgeoisie dream, the dream that entry into the ruling class is just within reach be it through entrepreneurship, playing the capital markets or playing the lottery. Marxists goal is disillusioning the proletariat from that dream, and bourgeoisie propaganda spins this to Marxist being against the proletariat getting ahead.

[The Idler]

Perhaps an example of John Molyneux's society will look like that photo of a Vietcong worker pointing a gun at a worker/technical experts head. Weren't the SWP fans of the Viet Cong? This, and the abolition of universal suffrage, is why Marxism is seen as anti-freedom.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Perhaps an example of John Molyneux's society will look like that photo of a Vietcong worker pointing a gun at a worker/technical experts head.:rolleyes:Oh you got called out on your sectarian spin-job because someone happened to be familiar with the book in question and now you're going to be a baby about it.

Weren't the SWP fans of the Viet Cong?No, not as the "bringers of socialism" but as a resistance to imperialism. You supported the French and US?


This, and the abolition of universal suffrage, is why Marxism is seen as anti-freedom.Do you support voting rights for explicitly counter-revolutionary forces during or right after the revolution?

And stop being so sectarian for no apparent reason in the Learning section.

[wsg1991]

Do you support voting rights for explicitly counter-revolutionary forces during or right after the revolution?

And stop being so sectarian for no apparent reason in the Learning section.

who gives you the right of identifying someone as counter revolutionary ??? such privilege can easily be abused

and if you mean the rest of the bourgeois remember that they are a small portion of the population ineffective without it's capital

[Thirsty Crow]

Because Marxism and it's opposition to private property, support for worker self-management, and such is seen as threatening by the bourgeois, who subsequently propagandize until every level of society responds to the word "Marxism" as if someone just said a dirty word.
To be more precise, in modern bourgeois ideology the notion of freedom has persistently been based on the practice of private property, up to the point where even considering the possibility of a "freedom" without this generalized practice of exchange is rendered moot.

[Rafiq]

This has nothing to do with Marxism.

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[TheRadicalAnarchist]

Because you can't exploit those of different classes, can't own nature, and can't persecute those of other beliefs. Which is everything that conservatives love.

[Jimmie Higgins]

who gives you the right of identifying someone as counter revolutionary ??? such privilege can easily be abused

and if you mean the rest of the bourgeois remember that they are a small portion of the population ineffective without it's capitalI don't mean people spying on their neighbors and turning them in for not waving a red flag hard enough. After the revolution I doubt that workers would allow openly pro-capitalist parties to try and win votes for turning back worker's power.

Electoral systems are still class systems and so when the bourgoise had their revolutions they restricted suffrage to landowners until basically capitalist hegemony was established and they could afford to give into some demands for the expansion of some rights.

A worker's revolution would need to do a similar thing: probably organize voting through work-site councils and working class neighborhood councils and militia councils. Unlike with capitalism or other systems of oppression, this restriction would only be needed at the beginning because unlike these other systems, the continuation of that system would not depend on the continued class oppression.

It's not full democracy compared to some abstract ideal democracy, but considering who'd be eligible to vote and the depth of their ability to make decisions about society, it would be vastly more democratic than anything we have seen. Not just deciding who your rep is, but actually collectively working out how things should work, what the priorities of production should be etc.

[Rafiq]

Marxism is a SCIENCE not a moral framework, not an ideology!

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[Anarpest]

Marxism is a SCIENCE not a moral framework, not an ideology!

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Yes, you've basically said that twice. What does it mean in a positive sense in connection with this topic? If Marxism is a 'science,' it's at basis a social science, in which the determination and critique of social conceptions of freedom would form an essential part, in the same way as the criticism of philosophy or bourgeois political economy. For that matter, neither Marx nor Engels considered 'freedom' to be outside the realm of their theories, what with their identification of communism with the freedom of each as the condition for the freedom of all, Marx's notes in Capital about the realm of freedom and realm of necessity, freely associated producers, etc., Engels' writings on freedom in its relation to necessity and communism as the kingdom of freedom and history (indeed, in which, "Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master — free.”), or indeed Marx's earlier writings on communism as the solution of the contradiction of freedom and necessity among other things.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to get across here, unless you're trying to somehow expunge the revolutionary, that is, teleological and practical, aspects from 'Marxism.' Still, it's hard to tell, because you haven't really told us much other than that this topic is irrelevant because Marxism is 'scientific,' whatever that means in this context.

[eric922]

I don't mean people spying on their neighbors and turning them in for not waving a red flag hard enough. After the revolution I doubt that workers would allow openly pro-capitalist parties to try and win votes for turning back worker's power.

Electoral systems are still class systems and so when the bourgoise had their revolutions they restricted suffrage to landowners until basically capitalist hegemony was established and they could afford to give into some demands for the expansion of some rights.

A worker's revolution would need to do a similar thing: probably organize voting through work-site councils and working class neighborhood councils and militia councils. Unlike with capitalism or other systems of oppression, this restriction would only be needed at the beginning because unlike these other systems, the continuation of that system would not depend on the continued class oppression.

It's not full democracy compared to some abstract ideal democracy, but considering who'd be eligible to vote and the depth of their ability to make decisions about society, it would be vastly more democratic than anything we have seen. Not just deciding who your rep is, but actually collectively working out how things should work, what the priorities of production should be etc.

To add to this point, I don't think it would be very difficult or dangerous to the revolution to extend full rights to former members of the petty-bourgeoisie and full bourgeois provided they aren't engaging in any counter-revolutionary activity. Granted, they may need to be watched for a period of time,but if a former capitalist wants to join the working class willingly and proves himself loyal, I see no reason to keep them in second-class citizen status.

[wsg1991]

To add to this point, I don't think it would be very difficult or dangerous to the revolution to extend full rights to former members of the petty-bourgeoisie and full bourgeois provided they aren't engaging in any counter-revolutionary activity. Granted, they may need to be watched for a period of time,but if a former capitalist wants to join the working class willingly and proves himself loyal, I see no reason to keep them in second-class citizen status.

i found some difficulties with this Petty bourgeois term ,

if you are going to restrict former capitalists based on physical evidence ( he had a capital or percentage from a corporate ) , that would be reasonable ,
i should remind you that Bourgeois is only effective through out it's economic power . but you can't restrict people advocating 'counter revolutionary ideas' , with such power you might restrict some other leftist group calling it counter revolutionary

[eric922]

i found some difficulties with this Petty bourgeois term ,

if you are going to restrict former capitalists based on physical evidence ( he had a capital or percentage from such a corporate ) , that would be reasonable ,
i should remind you that Bourgeois is only effective through out it's economic power . but you can't restrict people advocating 'counter revolutionary ideas' , with such power you might restrict some other leftist group calling it counter revolutionary

I agree 100% with you, sorry if I gave the impression otherwise. I firmly oppose restricting people in anyway without physical evidence and fair public trial. Without those safeguards in place things get too risky,as you said, you could call anyone counter revolutionary. Honestly, I find the concept of restricting people for mere ideas to be rather foolish in general. Anyway, sorry for the confusion. I hope I cleared things up.

[Sea]

Why is Marxism or Socialism seen as anti-freedom by pretty much everyone? Could someone explain this to me? Is it true? I don´t know much about Marxism or Socialism.

Most people have a conception of communism as an evil word, not as an idea.

Much of this if public fear, but considering the amount of people that have twisted communist ideas for their own needs I'm not surprised you get the impression of Marxism as anti-freedom.


Marx was definitely pro-democracy and anti-censorship, but I'd really rather not simply say that he was pro- or anti-freedom, seeing as freedom is such a complex word to define.

Best way to answer your question would probably be to do some reading of Marx's work yourself. I know you're looking for an easier answer than that (can't say I blame you), but it's always best to get the answer straight from the horse's mouth. :P