Capitalism, Communism, and Technology in Jewish Thought (In Their Own Words Series) V DIGSIG _ R CF
(TAVISH)
http://www.shamash.org/tanach/tanach/commentary/oxford-judaism/capitalism-communism
(Link active February 24, 2001)
<FAIR USE INTENDED -- NON-PROFIT>
[Edited for brevity by Doc Tavish]
This section is from the document '/Jewish Lists/oxford-judaism/930810'.
From shm...@chochma.demon.co.uk Tue Aug 10 12:53:29 1993
To: Jewis...@chochma.demon.co.uk, OxfordS...@chochma.demon.co.uk,
An...@chochma.demon.co.uk
Subject: Capitalism, Communism, and Technology in Jewish Thought
Dear Oxford-Judaism Subscribers,
Behold... the latest essay. This one is an unedited one about the
medium you are using to access these thoughts... computers, as well
as communism and capitalism. All comments are of course welcome.
All the best,
Shmuley
********************************************************
[...]
The Individual vs. the Community
Perhaps most importantly, the Torah discusses communism. It is
contrasted with the evils of capitalism. But first let us digress for
a moment to discover what capitalism and communism might really mean.
How could one sum up the whole of human history and existence in a
single idea? For me, the human condition is primarily characterised
by the struggle between the self and the community. When we are born,
we feel at one with the world: when the room is cold it feels as
though the whole universe is cold, when we are hungry we think the
whole of creation is hungry, and when we are loved we feel that
everything is loved. It is only through the process of learning how
to cope with the world that we come to see ourselves as disconnected
from those people and things which surround us. We learn to
categorise and we learn to separate, and in doing so we learn to be
selfish. The rest of our lives is the journey back to feeling part of
a community, but through choice and not unawareness, through
knowledge, not ignorance.
It is not surprising that the journey to community is a difficult
one. We are afraid to be alone, but are unwilling to depend on other
people. We like ourselves more than anyone else, but we feel guilty
if we are discovered behaving selfishly. I like the social benefits I
get from living in Britain (free higher education, the welfare state,
the National Health Service), but I don't actually enjoy paying my
taxes.
The major political systems of the world express this internal
struggle: reduced to an almost absurd essence, capitalism thinks that
the community is served by focusing on the individual, communism
thinks the individual is served by putting the rights of the
community first.
Of course, this struggle was not discovered by Marx: he was simply
the one who expressed it for the modern secular world. Thousands of
years before, the Bible had focused on this issue.
[...]
A Jewish Approach to Communism
Still, Abarbanel's comments on the nature of Capitalism as evil must
make us think again about the typical Jewish reaction to Communism.
Since Marxism has often taken the form of an extremely G-dless
totalitarian tool, it has been easy to dismiss such an ideology as
something that Judaism could never embrace.
However, G-dlessness is not a necessary characteristic of Communism.
Communism can even be described as a moral alternative to the
material excesses of Capitalism. To cite a contemporary Jewish
example: there are many kibbutzim in Israel who live by the standards
of economic collectivism, while religious kibbutzim uphold the banner
of Jewish observance. On the other hand, many kibbutzim are not only
non-religious but even violently anti-religious, such as the
Shomer-Haztair movement. The fact that a community in Israel adopts
the kibbutz way of life does not force a person in either direction,
and the adoption of Communism is not necessarily linked to atheism
either.
[...]
The Failure of Communism
The most common response in the west has been that the answer lies
simply in the failure of Communism. Communism failed, therefore
Capitalism must be right.
According to Capitalism, what led the Soviet Union to its final
collapse more than any other reason was the complete failure of its
economic system. The Soviet economy, industry, harvest, and produce
were all in a shambles. People simply got tired of walking into a
store in which all the shelves were empty. The reason for this
complete breakdown was surely the lack of impetus and motivation on
the part of the workers. When each is paid according to what the need
is and not according to how much he or she produces, it becomes
foolish to put in a harder day's work than one's fellow. 'Why should
I? Will my family benefit as a result of being a more devoted
employee? Will that family vacation that I have always dreamed about
become any more of a reality?' The people could see that the ideals
of Marx had not been achieved, and were dissatisfied. So the Soviet
Union stagnated, whereas western materialism flourished- at least for
those empowered economically.
Lubavitch as a Socialist Collectivist System
The standard capitalist approach is vastly incomplete and even
un-Jewish because it assumes, as its basic premise, that people can
only be motivated by reason of material gain...
...This seems to be the kind of thing that Judaism should be
encouraging everyone to do, not just Chassidim. Instead of having Capitalism
ingrained into our religion, surely Judaism could have
set up a system whereby everyone is paid according to their needs,
while encouraging everyone to exert themselves to the utmost in
order to bring about a better world?
[...]
The lure of money
The Torah is obsessed with the notion that we must strive to better
the world in which we live and improve the lot of humankind itself.
But it could have made non-material gains much more of a priority if
it had removed the distracting motivation of financial compensation,
and support for a capitalist economic system, from the picture.
[...]
Prematurely perfect
Communism is not wrong, because the ideals of sharing and community
are right; nor is it an inherently unG-dly regime, as we have seen in
the case of the kibbutzim... ...The problem with communism is that, although we
can imagine a perfect communist state in which wealth is distributed evenly and
fairly, the mechanisms that achieved this would be impersonal.
<END>
Remember that another Jewish group made apologia for communism too and here is
what I am talking about:
Jewish Communist Sympathy and Identification With Communists
From Chabad Lubavitch Cyberspace Website
In Their Own Words Series
All "searches" in this post were made using:
http://www.mnemotrix.com/chabad/
(Links active February 11, 2001)
<FAIR USE INTENDED -- NON-PROFIT>
http://www.chabad.org/shavuos/besht.html
Baal Shem Tov
Happy Birthday, Baal Shem Tov! by Tzvi Freeman, author of "Bringing Heaven
Down to Earth - 365 Meditations of the Rebbe" Vivo Icon Listen to stories
of the Baal Shem Tov. Requires Vivo Plugin The Lubavitch Library...
Excerpt: " By the way, that year -- 1848 -- also occupies a central place
in the secular calendar. It was called the "year of revolutions" in
Europe, the most significant year in the fall of the old order. And
another major work by a very different Jewish author was published: The
Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx."
http://www.chabad.org/gopher/update/odysseys/episode.008.htm
My Life with the Online Hasidim
Rabbi Perl was ecstatic: "Can you imagine? Five children! I found five
Jewish children!" Photo/Graphic/Quote: Donna Gaines: "I needed to stand in
a traditional synagogue again, to be where women and men are separated...
Excerpt: " Lighting Shabbes candles I felt a connection to all Jewish
women in the world. I was grasping for the roots of what my parents,
Jesus, Marx, Freud, Hannah Arendt, and Lenny Bruce had given me. In his
discussion of machinery and modern industry in Volume I of Capital, Marx
contends that technology in and of itself is neutral; in the hands of the
artisan, a machine is a tool and embodies a certain type of "dearness."
Within capitalist production, where the aim is profit maximization, the
machine is imbued with an evil nature."
http://www.inner.org/gentiles/7noachide/7princip.htm
The Seven Principles of Faith and Divine Service for a Non
Just as each of the 613 commandments of the Torah given to the Jewish
people at Sinai possesses an inner dimension, so does each of the seven
Noachide laws possess an inner dimension. These are the seven
principles...
Excerpt: " When a non-Jew does possess a sense of affinity towards Jews,
he merits inspiration from the source of the soul of Israel. He becomes
motivated to be a good person in all of his relations to his fellow man
and to devote his life to the service of G-d. The rectification of the
non-Jewish world in general depends upon the inspiration and insight which
it receives from the Jewish people. In accordance with the principle of
clarification, as defined in Kabbalah, one can always deduce or extract a
spark of good from within the context of evil. The major non-Jewish
religion of Western culture believes in an individual Jew and worships him
as god. This is certainly a great transgression (of the fourth Noachide
commandment defined above). Nonetheless, from this evil we can deduce a
principle of good. The true rectification of the non-Jewish world will
come when it will recognize the Divinely ordained purpose of the Jewish
people to enlighten the world and bring about universal peace and
prosperity..."
http://www.chabad.org/gopher/daily/tanya/leap/09end/24.htm
part.04
And yet, they failed! Of the hundreds of millions `devotees' to all these
faiths and causes, only a tiny fraction are truly faithful to them. The
overwhelming majority are self-deluding hypocrites: they take from...
Excerpt: "Believer: Secondly, they did succeed---to the extent that they
do concur with the essence of man and of creation. Communism, despite its
flaws and corruptions, has had a profound effect on our sense of social
justice. Christianity, despite the horrendous atrocities it perpetrated
and justified, played a major role in introducing, to a largely pagan
world, the concepts (though much adulterated) of a one, omnipotent and
non- corporeal G-d and of a messianic end-goal to existence."
http://www.fastlane.net/~bneinoah/life.html
CB"N - The Covenant of Everlasting Life
The idea of everlasting life is rather appealing to most folks. A somewhat
primal yearning seemingly tugs at us to somehow reclaim that certain
something which Adam and Chava lost when they sunk their teeth into...
Excerpt: " And now a personal observation, if you please: If (indeed, IF:
hypothetical speculation with such an example is, at best, an exercise of
futility - the socio-historical situation speaks for itself in the
archives of Jewish history) the righteous Jews of the Second Temple period
had taught the Seven Laws of Noah to the non-Jews, there would never have
risen a religion such as Christianity. With the knowledge that (through
the observance of the Sheva Mitzvot B nei Noach) everlasting life could be
attained as promised by Hashem to Noach, the resulting fabrication that
everlasting life could come only through belief and worship of a human
being would never have happened. Instead, as we have noted, the teaching
concerning the Covenant of the Rainbow - The Covenant of Everlasting Life,
had been forced into hiding by the vicious persecution of the Jews, and
the new covenant of Christianity was but a pagan attempt to replace the
eternal Covenant made by Hashem to Noach."
<END>
In the words of Jews themselves people! Their own words!
When will non-Jews stop worshipping these anti-Christs and see them for
what they are? My admonition to all the lemmings who adore the Jews-- stop
being a blind dupe-- stop worshipping the anti-Christs who look down upon
you and will NEVER look upon you as equals! They have not changed-- you
have changed. You believe that there exists a Judeo-Christian unity but
the Jew doesn't and NEVER has!
Doc Tavish
---
"Terms of a truce. Were I authorized to represent the Ukrainian position
in negotiating with Jews a cessation of verbal hostilities, I might open
with "If you stop fabricating lies about us, we will stop disclosing the
truth about you." Terms of a Truce by Ukrainian Organization 2/23/2001
(http://www.ukar.org/shapov01.shtml)
--digsig
Authentic Doc Tavish
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