Assuming you've already read part one - on my other blogsite, i.e.
http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/) - and if you haven't, definitely do so prior to reading this (as it simply won't make proper sense otherwise)...it's the June 13th blogpost...
Having said all the foregoing (upon my other blogsite, in that aforementioned blogpost, that is)...
I still subscribe - as did/do many if not most of those aforementioned individuals, and vast swathes of those living in those many and various former communist nations, I've little doubt - to an essential 'egalitarian', 'left-of-centre' economic view/perspective of things...
...though ultimately I simply cannot get past an incredible, almost breathtaking point conceded by none other than the *co-author of communism/marxism, Karl Marx himself...
Going on the premise/theory/presupposition that when folk call/consider themselves 'left-wing' they are essentially adhering to/declaring their allegiance to the notion that the world's wealth/goods ought ideally be 'equally' distributed to/shared amongst all folk everywhere (as far as conceivably possible, anyhow) - or, as Marx himself either stated it or effectively characterized it, 'from each according to his (or her) means, to each according to his (or her) need'...
...and not to the rather messy and extremely unpleasant accretions (of totalitarian control etc) that oftentimes adhere to the pejoratively-used term/label 'communist' (and consequently to all those who themselves adhere to that view of the world/reality)...
...isn't it rather curious how/that Karl Marx - evidently a university dropout as well as anti-semitic (for those keeping score nowadays...i.e. for impartial souls who are keenly aware that indulging in el typical historical revisionism as is so much the rage these days just might occasionally throw up/ expose a few of one's own iconic 'untouchables')
- was only able to find/locate one historical instance whereby 'communism' had ever been shown to 'work'...
Citing the wonderful demonstration of mutual benevolence so powerfully on display in the Early (Christian) Church - and doubtless having in mind such potent examples/instances as those recorded in the Book of Acts (of the Apostles), to wit Acts 2: 44-45; and 4: 32-34-37, as illustrations of what he termed **'primitive communism'...
I personally find it more than just a little intriguing that - in Marx' own view - the one and only historical instance of (such) effectively conducted/successfully achieved socialism/communism is one whereby his theorem (if we accept for the sake of argument that it is truly an instance thereof)...
...came about, not by a top-down governmental edict or diktat, but spontaneously, from the grass-roots up...
...which just may go some way to explaining why onlookers throughout the then known world charged its proponents with having 'turned the world upside down'...
*As, of course - for those with historical memory - the Communist Manifesto was co-authored by Friedrich Engels.
**Whether due to its historical antiquity or (more likely) due to his belief that it represented a rather formative, as in 'inchoate', example of his own pet theorem (of marxism/communism).
http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/) - and if you haven't, definitely do so prior to reading this (as it simply won't make proper sense otherwise)...it's the June 13th blogpost...
Having said all the foregoing (upon my other blogsite, in that aforementioned blogpost, that is)...
I still subscribe - as did/do many if not most of those aforementioned individuals, and vast swathes of those living in those many and various former communist nations, I've little doubt - to an essential 'egalitarian', 'left-of-centre' economic view/perspective of things...
...though ultimately I simply cannot get past an incredible, almost breathtaking point conceded by none other than the *co-author of communism/marxism, Karl Marx himself...
Going on the premise/theory/presupposition that when folk call/consider themselves 'left-wing' they are essentially adhering to/declaring their allegiance to the notion that the world's wealth/goods ought ideally be 'equally' distributed to/shared amongst all folk everywhere (as far as conceivably possible, anyhow) - or, as Marx himself either stated it or effectively characterized it, 'from each according to his (or her) means, to each according to his (or her) need'...
...and not to the rather messy and extremely unpleasant accretions (of totalitarian control etc) that oftentimes adhere to the pejoratively-used term/label 'communist' (and consequently to all those who themselves adhere to that view of the world/reality)...
...isn't it rather curious how/that Karl Marx - evidently a university dropout as well as anti-semitic (for those keeping score nowadays...i.e. for impartial souls who are keenly aware that indulging in el typical historical revisionism as is so much the rage these days just might occasionally throw up/ expose a few of one's own iconic 'untouchables')
- was only able to find/locate one historical instance whereby 'communism' had ever been shown to 'work'...
Citing the wonderful demonstration of mutual benevolence so powerfully on display in the Early (Christian) Church - and doubtless having in mind such potent examples/instances as those recorded in the Book of Acts (of the Apostles), to wit Acts 2: 44-45; and 4: 32-34-37, as illustrations of what he termed **'primitive communism'...
I personally find it more than just a little intriguing that - in Marx' own view - the one and only historical instance of (such) effectively conducted/successfully achieved socialism/communism is one whereby his theorem (if we accept for the sake of argument that it is truly an instance thereof)...
...came about, not by a top-down governmental edict or diktat, but spontaneously, from the grass-roots up...
...which just may go some way to explaining why onlookers throughout the then known world charged its proponents with having 'turned the world upside down'...
*As, of course - for those with historical memory - the Communist Manifesto was co-authored by Friedrich Engels.
**Whether due to its historical antiquity or (more likely) due to his belief that it represented a rather formative, as in 'inchoate', example of his own pet theorem (of marxism/communism).
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