This was the most good faith reading I’ve ever heard a Christian make of Marxism/communism. It’s very impressive work you guys are doing. Teeny tiny thing: the whole power of the state thing is more of what we see in implementations of Marxism in the Soviet Union and China. Marx had envisioned a dictatorship of the proletariat, or basically a collective uprising of workers to seize the means of production and run society. The Soviets justified this pretty large difference by saying Russian peasants were too uneducated in Marxist theory to do Marxism as it was originally intended so it was up to the intellectuals to do the proletariat’s job. China largely copied this model with Maoism so some have argued the statist way isn’t actually Marxism and it is worth noting that each of the other -isms have the names of leaders who basically kept the language of Marx but took a lot of liberties with the original concept.
Acts 4:34 says that “there was not a needy person among them” due to distribution of the proceeds of the sale of houses and land. Now, as stated above, we don’t know how long this arrangement continued. However, by the end of the eleventh chapter, there were certainly many needy believers, many who lacked. In fact the church in Judea had become so impoverished due to a worldwide famine that the Christians in Antioch took a collection to help them.
Kudos to Dave, as even in a short amount of time researching and attempting to grapple with the text of Marx, a good base of understanding was achieved. Marx's great contribution to political theory was understanding the movement of capital, and extracted value. Workers produce a good or service at a higher value than what they are paid hence businesses make a profit. What is to be done with that profit is the key question. In capitalism, that gets pocketed by in large by a tiny slice of the population. A socialist/worker's collective approach to that, would give the workers the decision making. Either they could work less or pay themselves more or fund other projects/make capital improvements. Also, Jeff is completely wrong about capitalism raising the poverty levels globally. If you look at that incredibly weird statistic that the World Bank created, its China that contributed the most to raising people out of poverty, since naturally the state capitalist system will help more people than capitalism. By in large Jeff needs to read more of what Dave was looking into, its impossible for older generations to look at Marxism impartially, since it was so heavily propagandized against. To be a true student of history I recommend reading "The Dawn of Everything" by Dave Graeber. And by in large, reading a lot more liberation theologists that came out of South America.
I like the new studio. Can’t wait to visit again this Sunday!
Thanks for having this clear, understanding conversation about communism!
This was the most good faith reading I’ve ever heard a Christian make of Marxism/communism. It’s very impressive work you guys are doing.
Teeny tiny thing: the whole power of the state thing is more of what we see in implementations of Marxism in the Soviet Union and China. Marx had envisioned a dictatorship of the proletariat, or basically a collective uprising of workers to seize the means of production and run society. The Soviets justified this pretty large difference by saying Russian peasants were too uneducated in Marxist theory to do Marxism as it was originally intended so it was up to the intellectuals to do the proletariat’s job. China largely copied this model with Maoism so some have argued the statist way isn’t actually Marxism and it is worth noting that each of the other -isms have the names of leaders who basically kept the language of Marx but took a lot of liberties with the original concept.
Acts 4:34 says that “there was not a needy person among them” due to distribution of the proceeds of the sale of houses and land.
Now, as stated above, we don’t know how long this arrangement continued. However, by the end of the eleventh chapter, there were certainly many needy believers, many who lacked. In fact the church in Judea had become so impoverished due to a worldwide famine that the Christians in Antioch took a collection to help them.
This did not work out for them.
Kudos to Dave, as even in a short amount of time researching and attempting to grapple with the text of Marx, a good base of understanding was achieved. Marx's great contribution to political theory was understanding the movement of capital, and extracted value. Workers produce a good or service at a higher value than what they are paid hence businesses make a profit. What is to be done with that profit is the key question. In capitalism, that gets pocketed by in large by a tiny slice of the population. A socialist/worker's collective approach to that, would give the workers the decision making. Either they could work less or pay themselves more or fund other projects/make capital improvements. Also, Jeff is completely wrong about capitalism raising the poverty levels globally. If you look at that incredibly weird statistic that the World Bank created, its China that contributed the most to raising people out of poverty, since naturally the state capitalist system will help more people than capitalism. By in large Jeff needs to read more of what Dave was looking into, its impossible for older generations to look at Marxism impartially, since it was so heavily propagandized against. To be a true student of history I recommend reading "The Dawn of Everything" by Dave Graeber. And by in large, reading a lot more liberation theologists that came out of South America.
Karl Marx took his ideas from the Book of Acts. From each according to their means, to each according to their needs ;-)
I remember once watching a bowl of porridge cool, the top layer changing colour and hardening. That was pretty exciting, comparitively.