BIG BROTHER
12th February 2008, 03:10
I just finished reading the communist manifiesto, which i happened to get from the school library. The problem is, that the manifiesto came with an introduction by Stefan T. Possony. And during his introducion he critizises socialim, along with Marxism and communism. This part of his introduction is called "Socialim and Slave labor"
"the greatest mystery of why so-called "progressives" embrace Marxian communism is provided by the Manifiesto's proposal regarding "equal liability of all to labor" and the "stablishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture." This pphrasing is an identical re-write of Engels' formula in the Foundations, except that after the word "labor" Engels had added the following: "until the total suppression of private property." Thus Engels proposed slave labor as a transitory meausre, presumably as a method of forcing the iddle, the rich and non-proletarians to do manual labor. By contrast, the Manifiesto advocated compulsory labor service on a permanent basis. Let it be clrearly understood, then , that communismm, on the strenght of its own demands, must be built upon slave labor. This was pointed out as early as 1848 by de Tocqueville, who said that the socialist state inevitably must become the master of each man. Socialism "is the confiscation...of human liberty... It is serfdom under a new formula." How, we may ask, did such a system ever come to be regarded as "pro-gressive"?
The communist who still uphold the Manifiesto as their gospel cannot be acused of incosistency: they do operate slave labor camps. The social democrasts and socialists oppose the communist on this pint very strongly. But they have never clearly repudiated the Marxian program. It is true that they adhere to Marx only in a dilatory fashion. But as late as 1948 even the British Labor party published a centennial edition of the Manifiesto, in which Harold Laski failed to take issue with the proposed introduction of slave labor.
Karl Kautsky, to his day the leading theoretician of socialism, wrote in his Grundsaetze und Forderungen der Sozialdemokratie(1892) as follows:
Socialist produtction is not compatible iwth liberty of work; that is to say, with the worker's freedom to work when or how he likes.... It is true that under the rule of capitalism, a worker still enjoys liberty up to a certain degree. If he does not quite like a factory, he can find work elsewhere . In a socialist society, all the means of production will be concetrated in the hands of the state, and the latter will be the only employer; there will be no choice. The workman today enjoys more liberty than he will possess in a socialist society.
To "repudiate" Engels, Mark and Kautsky on this central point is not good enought. For once these men were right: socialism without compulsory labor is a impossible as wooden iron or dry water. It is not time for the labor movement to acknowledge that socialism is a flase solution to the problems of misery and opression? Is it no obvious that freedom and well-being cannot be accomplished by the aboliton of property, but only by maintaining or creating conditions in which the largest number of citizens are able to acquire property and, through it, economic security? What mus be repudiated is not just slave labor, but socialim itself."
Now this guy Stefan is dead, but how would you guys respond to him?
"the greatest mystery of why so-called "progressives" embrace Marxian communism is provided by the Manifiesto's proposal regarding "equal liability of all to labor" and the "stablishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture." This pphrasing is an identical re-write of Engels' formula in the Foundations, except that after the word "labor" Engels had added the following: "until the total suppression of private property." Thus Engels proposed slave labor as a transitory meausre, presumably as a method of forcing the iddle, the rich and non-proletarians to do manual labor. By contrast, the Manifiesto advocated compulsory labor service on a permanent basis. Let it be clrearly understood, then , that communismm, on the strenght of its own demands, must be built upon slave labor. This was pointed out as early as 1848 by de Tocqueville, who said that the socialist state inevitably must become the master of each man. Socialism "is the confiscation...of human liberty... It is serfdom under a new formula." How, we may ask, did such a system ever come to be regarded as "pro-gressive"?
The communist who still uphold the Manifiesto as their gospel cannot be acused of incosistency: they do operate slave labor camps. The social democrasts and socialists oppose the communist on this pint very strongly. But they have never clearly repudiated the Marxian program. It is true that they adhere to Marx only in a dilatory fashion. But as late as 1948 even the British Labor party published a centennial edition of the Manifiesto, in which Harold Laski failed to take issue with the proposed introduction of slave labor.
Karl Kautsky, to his day the leading theoretician of socialism, wrote in his Grundsaetze und Forderungen der Sozialdemokratie(1892) as follows:
Socialist produtction is not compatible iwth liberty of work; that is to say, with the worker's freedom to work when or how he likes.... It is true that under the rule of capitalism, a worker still enjoys liberty up to a certain degree. If he does not quite like a factory, he can find work elsewhere . In a socialist society, all the means of production will be concetrated in the hands of the state, and the latter will be the only employer; there will be no choice. The workman today enjoys more liberty than he will possess in a socialist society.
To "repudiate" Engels, Mark and Kautsky on this central point is not good enought. For once these men were right: socialism without compulsory labor is a impossible as wooden iron or dry water. It is not time for the labor movement to acknowledge that socialism is a flase solution to the problems of misery and opression? Is it no obvious that freedom and well-being cannot be accomplished by the aboliton of property, but only by maintaining or creating conditions in which the largest number of citizens are able to acquire property and, through it, economic security? What mus be repudiated is not just slave labor, but socialim itself."
Now this guy Stefan is dead, but how would you guys respond to him?