The basic concepts of communism have a long intellectual and practical history, stretching back to antiquity.
However, Karl Marx transformed these scattered ideas into a comprehensive and systematic theory of history, economics, and revolution,
making him the single most influential figure in the development of modern communism.
Long before Marx, the idea of a classless, stateless society based on the common ownership of property was a recurring theme in Western thought and practice.
Throughout history, various groups and thinkers ahave dvocated for communal living or questioned private property.
Philosophers like Plato, in his "Republic", envisioned a ruling class that held property in common.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca also wrote nostalgically about a mythical past where nature's bounty was shared by all.
The early Christian community in Jerusalem, as described in the "Acts of the Apostles", is frequently cited
as an early example of religious communism, where believers "had everything in common".
Communalist ideas persisted through groups like the "Diggers" in England during the 17th century, who advocated for agrarian communism,
and in the writings of Thomas More, whose book "Utopia" depicted a society based on common ownership.
Thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century also criticized private property as a source of social ills.
All these moments in history try to deal with the problem of private property and the manner in which wealth and prosperity are distributed among the various groups in society.
Karl Marx and his close friend, Friedrich Engels, theorized that for most of human prehistory, hunter-gatherer societies were fundamentally egalitarian,
practicing a form of "primitive communism" where resources were shared, and there was no private property or social hierarchy.
This concept was not just a historical observation. It was central to their theory that class divisions and private property were not natural or eternal, but emerged at a specific stage of historical development.
Unlike the utopian socialists before him, Marx did not simply describe an ideal communist future.
He argued that capitalism itself would create the conditions for its own overthrow by uniting a massive, disciplined, and organized working class.
He believed this proletariat would lead a revolution, abolish private property, and eventually establish a classless, stateless society.
Marx did not present a blueprint for a perfect communist society. It should be noted that Marx’s ideas were later adapted,
contested, and implemented in ways he did not foresee. In the next lecture, we'll study what Marx had to offer and how his ideas were used after his death.
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
of Economic Thought (2012)
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
24 - Materialism 7 Sept 2022 / 1011
25 - Historical Materialism 5 Oct 2023 / 1088
26 - The Bonobo and the Atheist 9 Jan 2024 / 1102
27 - Artificial Intelligence 9 Feb 2024 / 1108
28 - Why Am I Here 6 Sept 2024 / 1139
The Discussion
[14:12] Max Chatnoir: Thanks, Herman.
[14:12] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Thank you Herman
[14:12] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[14:12] Max Chatnoir: You said something about early Christian communities having common property shared among "believers." Did that imply that people not members of the believing community were excluded from sharing in the property?
[14:13] herman Bergson: It is fascinating to see how private property is one of our big problems in society
[14:13] Max Chatnoir: Was common property in this and similar situations just land?
[14:14] herman Bergson: I wasn't their Max, but that should be against chritian believes.
[14:14] herman Bergson: Excluding people.
[14:14] Max Chatnoir: I guess they didn't leave copies of the property agreement.
[14:15] Max Chatnoir: But did communal property generally just apply to land or to other stuff as well?
[14:15] herman Bergson: I really don't know... but the monasteries were a continuation of these principles
[14:17] herman Bergson: Point is that somewhere deep inside there is a longing for a classless and communalist society...
[14:17] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[14:17] herman Bergson: And there is this longing of equasl sharing of the resources of this world
[14:17] Max Chatnoir: How did they determine which parts of the land, etc, belonged to the group?
[14:18] Stranger Nightfire: Monastics in fact often take a vow of poverty
[14:18] Stranger Nightfire: meaning they are not going to accrue personal possessions
[14:18] herman Bergson: It is an old tradition dating from the early Middle Ages, that small villages had a common piece of land...
[14:19] Max Chatnoir: for crops or for other uses as well?
[14:19] herman Bergson: Farmers could bring their sheep etc there, or gather firewood
[14:20] herman Bergson: And next to that they work on their own land
[14:20] Max Chatnoir: And was this use restricted to the residents of the village, or did they share with nearby people?
[14:20] Daruma Boa: But that's difficult to apply today. We need to free ourselves from old ideas and apply it to the present.
[14:21] Max Chatnoir: That's the tricky part!
[14:21] herman Bergson: people in those villages weren't so happy with strangers...
[14:21] Daruma Boa: same today
[14:21] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:21] herman Bergson: Yes, hasn't changed
[14:22] Max Chatnoir: After the industrial revolution, how is the ownership of property determined?
[14:22] Stranger Nightfire: Getting back to the Christians Yeshua pretty explicitly stated that one must feed the poor and welcome the stranger
[14:22] herman Bergson: I'd say like Jeremy Bentham claimed: by law
[14:22] Stranger Nightfire: Not many real Christians around of course
[14:22] herman Bergson: No law, no property
[14:23] herman Bergson: Some did indeed Stranger,
[14:23] Daruma Boa: People often don't want to take responsibility themselves and blame it on religion or some kind of organization. Or a law
[14:24] Daruma Boa: That's the problem. No one wants to be responsible.
[14:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i say that is often the case
[14:24] Max Chatnoir: Say some more about law and property, Herman.
[14:24] Daruma Boa: As a human himself.
[14:25] herman Bergson: Well, it is a clear thing that today everything regarding property is regulated by contracts, patents, laws etc.
[14:25] Stranger Nightfire: sorry if I was speaking out loud, just meant to be using voice-to-text software
[14:25] herman Bergson: No problem ㋡
[14:27] herman Bergson: Everything is owned by someone and it is put in a contract or official paper.
[14:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): thats how it works mostly
[14:28] herman Bergson: So the law creates and protects private property
[14:28] Max Chatnoir: So property sharing would require some kind of agreement.
[14:28] Stranger Nightfire: today we have I people owning things like the rights to the water that is in the ground
[14:28] Max Chatnoir: Or the gas.
[14:28] herman Bergson: That might even be a problem, Max...
[14:29] herman Bergson: I can share a huge parcel of land with a lot of people....but the law still says that I own the land
[14:29] Max Chatnoir: Do you mean that coming to an agreement would be the problem, or something else?
[14:29] Stranger Nightfire: As far as the hoarding and centralizing of wealth goes a lot of people might think if they bought land that they bought the mineral rights to what was under that land but in most cases they did not Those are still owned by somebody else
[14:30] herman Bergson: I wonder how collective ownership should work....
[14:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ok
[14:30] Max Chatnoir: So how do laws like that get changed? I mean if a lot of people agreed that community property would be a good thing, what does it take to get there?
[14:31] Stranger Nightfire: In some cases I think even as a property owner you may not be able to stop the people who own the mineral rights coming onto your land to drill or mine for those things
[14:31] herman Bergson: Well, after Marx we got the Russian Revolution od 1917
[14:31] herman Bergson: to begin with....
[14:32] Max Chatnoir: Revolutions are destructive. Is there some kind of civilized way to do stuff like that?
[14:32] herman Bergson: and there has to be a legislative power to create laws that make collective ownership possible
[14:32] Stranger Nightfire: Before the Russian Revolution there were some others that failed
[14:32] Stranger Nightfire: one in France as I recalled and I think maybe one in Germany
[14:33] herman Bergson: To be honest, you won't get this achieved in any parliament
[14:33] Max Chatnoir: Is that because the legislators have effectively been bought?
[14:34] herman Bergson: I think it goes deeper..... it questions the concept of private property
[14:34] Stranger Nightfire: It is a problem for us pacifists to figure out how to wrest power from those who are addicted to it, and who the money goes to, the police, the military
[14:35] herman Bergson: Even communist countries like Vietnam and China have allowed accumulation of private property (yet under party control to some extent)
[14:35] herman Bergson: I think so too, Stranger
[14:35] Stranger Nightfire: Yeah they even have some billionaires in China
[14:36] Stranger Nightfire: But the billionaires do not control the state the way they do in the United States
[14:36] herman Bergson: They do ... and make them disappear when they say the wrong things :-)
[14:37] herman Bergson: No, on the contrary... the state controls the billionaires in China
[14:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:38] bergfrau Apfelbaum: the state in China controls everyone...there are cameras everywhere
[14:39] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): true
[14:39] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): not evenn the billioaires are safe
[14:40] herman Bergson: Ok, next week we'll try to find out what of Marx ideas have survived and how....
[14:40] Max Chatnoir: It's just that the economic gap between most of us and the upper uppers seems to be increasing and that doesn't seem right.
[14:40] herman Bergson: For now, relax your brain unless you still want to add something...
[14:41] Daruma Boa: Yes. I think also the meaning of life is not having too much.
[14:41] Daruma Boa: Resources must be shared.
[14:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): indeed
[14:41] Stranger Nightfire: I would suggest that at some point we discussed the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is a union of worker coops
[14:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): true
[14:41] Daruma Boa: But for this you must have no ego
[14:41] Daruma Boa: and the ego is the problem of human kind
[14:41] Stranger Nightfire: and is the 7th largest corporation in Spain
[14:42] herman Bergson: The big problem with this inequality is that the rich derive a lot of political power from this inequality....
[14:42] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:42] Daruma Boa: Yes nd that is based on ego;-)
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ego is abig problem
[14:43] Max Chatnoir: and money having been defined as "speech"
[14:43] herman Bergson: I'll make a note of that Stranger
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): if we helped each other instead, we could all thrive and push forward together
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but they ont think so
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): dont
[14:43] Daruma Boa: Tatb is what every spiritual idea is trying to solve.
[14:44] Daruma Boa: Make peace with your ego and let it go
[14:44] Daruma Boa: But its the hardest thing for humankind
[14:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aah
[14:44] Daruma Boa: Cos everyone thinks he - she - it is so important as an individual
[14:45] Daruma Boa: But we are only parts everything
[14:46] herman Bergson: What is meant by EGO here?
[14:46] herman Bergson: The Maslow stratification of needs?
[14:47] herman Bergson: or our hunger for power?
[14:47] Daruma Boa: Your self-esteem or self-importance.
[14:47] herman Bergson: Our inclination to dominate others?
[14:47] Daruma Boa: Example: “He has a big ego” → he thinks very highly of himself
[14:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[14:48] herman Bergson: So our narcissism?
[14:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and the others around are just crap
[14:48] Stranger Nightfire: Interesting to note at least I was told this recently that manslaughter himself actually only categorized the different human needs and it was somebody else who organized them into a hierarchical pyramid
[14:48] Daruma Boa: The ego is your identity or “self-image.”
[14:50] Max Chatnoir: you meant Maslow?
[14:51] herman Bergson: I really don't know what to do with your statement, Daruma....
[14:51] Max Chatnoir: @Stranger
[14:51] herman Bergson: identity/self-image...?
[14:52] herman Bergson: Is identity a constant or a variable, for instance
[14:53] herman Bergson: Does it evolve, change through my lifetime?
[14:53] Max Chatnoir: I think that some sense of your individuality is necessary to be you rather than somebody else.
[14:54] Max Chatnoir: And I think it does evolve over time.
[14:54] Stranger Nightfire: yes Max that was a great example of how bad voice recognition sometimes is
[14:54] Stranger Nightfire: it was Maslow
[14:54] herman Bergson: I think this could be a theme for a whole new philosophy project ㋡
[14:54] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): oki
[14:54] Max Chatnoir: I think you're right, Herman!
[14:55] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[14:55] herman Bergson: So for now I'd say ....RUN !!!!!
[14:55] Daruma Boa: Our ego is about desires, what we think we need and want. But mostly it's selfish. We are mostly not able to overcome our desires and be really objective.
[14:55] bergfrau Apfelbaum: grins
[14:56] Max Chatnoir: Genetically, we're pretty close as a species. But we're different enough to reject each other's skin grafts.
[14:56] herman Bergson: Makes sense
[14:56] Max Chatnoir: Is that a kind of biological identity?
[14:56] Max Chatnoir: Ok, drifting away from the topic here....
[14:57] Daruma Boa: But we mostly think we are so special and in control of everything.
[14:57] Daruma Boa: But we are not.
[14:57] herman Bergson: Thank you all again for your participation...
[14:58] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[14:58] Daruma Boa: And with this we should think about everything totally new with a new perspective.
[14:58] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): I guess so
[14:58] herman Bergson: Class dismissed....
[14:58] Daruma Boa: 🐱
[14:58] herman Bergson: Nice job for the weekend ㋡
[14:58] Daruma Boa: Only cats know the truth
[14:59] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Thank you Herman, interesting as usual:)
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