Marx and Nietzsche on Socialism and Envy
Follow-up to my earlier blog: “Research Shows Socialism Is About Envy“:
(many thanks to my friends M and E for this)
First a quote from Karl Marx himself. I found it in extended length at the blog called “The Sentinel“:
Marx, in his much neglected Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts warned against […] what he termed “crude communism”. Crude communism “appears in a double form; the domination of material property looms so large that it aims to destroy everything which is incapable of being possessed by everyone as private property. It wishes to eliminate talent, etc., by force . . . The role of worker is not abolished but extended to all men. The relation of private property remains the relation of the community to the world of things . . . This communism, which negates the personality of man in every sphere is . . . Universal envy setting itself up as a power, is only camouflaged form of cupidity which re-establishes itself and satisfies itself in a different way. The thoughts of every individual private property are at least directed against any wealthier private property, in the form of envy and the desire to reduce everything to a common level; so that this envy and levelling in fact constitute the essence of competition. Crude communism is only the culmination of such envy and levelling-down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. How little this abolishing of private property represents a genuine appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the whole world of culture and civilisation, and the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and wantless individual who has not only not surpassed private property but has not even attained to it. The community is only a community of work and of equality of wages paid out by the communal capital, by the community as universal capitalists. The two sides of the relation are raised to a supposed universality; labour as a condition in which everyone is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community.”
Marx was likely talking about Babeuf, but the idea of flattening everybody down to the lowest common poverty has come back into fashion (usually dressed up as “antiglobalization” or “environmentalism”).
===============
And now unto Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Anti-Christ (section #57):
Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The socialist rabble, the chandala apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker’s sense of satisfaction with his small existence–who make him envious, who teach him revenge. The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of “equal” rights.
Nietzsche was of course talking about Christians too, but that I’ll leave to another blog…
Written by omnologos
2008/Jan/17 at 20:04:42
Posted in Economics, Ethics, Political Economy, Politics, Sociology
Tagged with Babeuf, Communism, François-Noël Babeuf, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Liberals, Marx, Nietzsche, Socialism
13 Responses
Subscribe to comments with RSS.
Brilliant thinking. Right on.
Thanx
Jeanne
2008/Jan/18 at 01:41:05
The Nietzsche I like the most (lucid and argumentative, rather than annoyingly oracular) is the one of “Human, all too Human”. That book contains two very insightful aphorisms about socialism: #446 (on “justice” vs “power”) and #473 (on socialism’s true ancestry, and its likely outcome). Here they are (from ):
Enzo
2008/Jan/18 at 14:18:59
Yes, socialism “is” envy. But capitalism gives greed a workout: Gordon Gecko: “greed is good”.
Sooner or later, we’ll get through all the Seven Deadly Sins, basing a political movement on lust, pride, anger, and even gluttony.
But note a fundamental asymmetry. Once you leave off basing social movements on deadly sins, you get socialism: the socialism that’s not about envy but about charity.
Edward G. Nilges
2008/Feb/15 at 07:21:00
Not sooner or later. Ideologies contain the sins already:
The Ranters were a heretical sect of egalitarians in the English civil war who based much of their views on controversial views about polygymy, free love, orgies etc (lust).
It could be argued that Monachy is based on pride, that Fascism is blind anger…
Hackett
2011/Apr/20 at 19:24:04
mmmm…”charitable socialism”…sounds like a “solidarity pact”. A good idea that keeps getting ruined in practice. Even Mussolini believed in it.
omnologos
2008/Feb/15 at 09:34:07
Interpretations can be ideological. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm
Finally, communism is the positive expression of annulled private property – at first as universal private property.
By embracing this relation as a whole, communism is:
(1) In its first form only a generalization and consummation of it [of this relation]. As such it appears in a two-fold form: on the one hand, the dominion of material property bulks so large that it wants to destroy everything which is not capable of being possessed by all as private property. It wants to disregard talent, etc., in an arbitrary manner.
ad
2009/Oct/25 at 21:19:35
when this two thinkers, Marx and Nietzsche, are agree or disagree between theyselfs???
I thanks if i have a answer!
Antonio
2010/Jan/11 at 20:42:10
This would be good for all members of the NDP and its ilk to read. Perhaps it will open their eyes and minds for the evil they are espousing.
Jan
2010/Feb/06 at 13:59:41
the only reason why socialist nations failed at the end is because at the end they forget the basis of their ideology, and the fact that they became power hungry or became totalitarians
(i.e. Valdemar linen,Josef Stalin ) they forgot that socialism was for the people and not the government or big corporates.
abdinasir
2010/Sep/22 at 05:08:45
Marx said that there are two types of communism a low level and a high level. late on Lenin went on to explain those levels. The low level being Socialism, and the high level being commmunism.
abdinasir
2010/Sep/22 at 05:11:51
With one foot yet in the jungle humanity ponders it’s direction. Which is more envious…intellectualism or instinct?
Patrick
2010/Oct/11 at 02:48:51
I agree with nietzsche, the irrationality, and greed of humans must be deciphered and mutated. a consciousness shift must occur, that is not the absolute negation of the self, where the ego loses itself into the vast economy of existence, rather, we will find ourselves at the doorstep of a clitoris.
Erik
2010/Dec/26 at 03:00:25
I think both Marx and Nietzsche have said the same things.Marx in some what lighter tone and Nietzsche in a harsher tone.
Aun
2011/Oct/15 at 04:04:28