Jabbadabbado posted:I know this is heretical to strict Marxism..
Marx, in his critique posted:Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Jabbadabbado posted:Communism and socialism have never really been given a chance to fail on their own terms, not that they wouldn't.
E_S posted:Communism is a nasty idea because it destroys the individual in favour of the collective. Think of every single great work of art, every piece of uplifting music, every novel which has celebrated the human spirit. Think of the greatest orators, leaders, and philosophers of all time and understand that in ideal theoretical communism they can't exist, because the point is that anyone like that cultivates respect, influence, a following, and that begins to change the classless, stateless dynamic - like a magnet over iron filings, or a leak in a large body of water, it alters the distribution of equality.
Jabbadabbado posted:This is not necessarily true of state-owned companies that compete in international markets. Saudi Aramco competes spectacularly - some of the most innovative oil producers in the world. The Saudis know how to invest in their business.
E_S posted:Actually, no it's not. Marx's notion of an opiate for the masses has been, for lack of a better word, raped quite extensively over time. It comes from his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and taken in context it never justifies the reputation it's gained. In fact, it's probably one of the only two quotes that people know from Marx, and unfortunately they don't know the context: Marx, in his critique posted:Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Marx posted:Für Deutschland ist die Kritik der Religion im wesentlichen beendigt, und die Kritik der Religion ist die Voraussetzung aller Kritik.
For Germany, the criticism of religion is largely completed; the criticism of religion is the prerequisite for all criticism.
Marx posted:Das Fundament der irreligiösen Kritik ist: Der Mensch macht die Religion, die Religion macht nicht den Menschen. Und zwar ist die Religion das Selbstbewußtsein und das Selbstgefühl des Menschen, der sich selbst entweder noch nicht erworben oder schon wieder verloren hat. Aber der Mensch, das ist kein abstraktes, außer der Welt hockendes Wesen. Der Mensch, das ist die Welt des Menschen, Staat, Sozietät. Dieser Staat, diese Sozietät produzieren die Religion, ein verkehrtes Weltbewußtsein, weil sie eine verkehrte Welt sind. Die Religion ist die allgemeine Theorie dieser Welt, ihr enzyklopädisches Kompendium, ihre Logik in populärer Form, ihr spiritualistischer Point-d`honneur, ihr Enthusiasmus, ihre moralische Sanktion, ihre feierliche Ergänzung, ihr allgemeiner Trost- und Rechtfertigungsgrund. Sie ist die phantastische Verwirklichung des menschlichen Wesens, weil das menschliche Wesen keine wahre Wirklichkeit besitzt. Der Kampf gegen die Religion ist also mittelbar der Kampf gegen jene Welt, deren geistiges Aroma die Religion ist.
Here is the basis for an anti-religious criticism: Men make religion, religion does not make men. Religion is mankind's self-consciousness and self-awareness to the extent he has not yet found himself or has become lost. But, man is no abstraction perched outside the world. Man comprises his world, the state, the society. This state and this society create religion, an inverted consciousness of the world arising from an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedia, its popular logic, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its morality, its solemn addition, and its shared foundation for consolation and justification. It is the fantastical realization of human essence when human essence has no reality of its own. Thus the struggle against religion is the indirect struggle against a world whose spiritual fragrance is religion.
