• Rem [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This gets posted as an anti-communist quote, I've seen it before lol

    • Jeff_Benzos [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      "Hmmm, you think communism is good? Well, what if it were communism but with slaves?" :very-smart:

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This is basically the system that the Spartans had. If you read their laws they almost seem like a commune, except for the part that it was all supported by the brutally repressed Helots.

    • Owl [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      This isn't true. Spartiate families owned land (a kleros) that was inherited, the kleroi weren't equal, and they became increasingly less equal over the history of Sparta. Many families lost their Spartiate status because they couldn't keep up with the wealth requirements of their class.

      Spartan writings had a decline narrative, where they said all Spartiates were more equal in the past, but there isn't any evidence this was actually the case. Just more ur-fascists worshipping a mythologized past.

      Here's a historian blogging about Spartan equality

      • Vncredleader [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I love how this is the third time or so that blog has been cited here. Fucking wonderful resource

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      "Robot" drives from the Czech word robota, used for the forced labour performed by serfs.

      • kristina [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        ah fuck we did it, i thought it was just awkward coincidence lmfao

        cause in czech robot is robot like in english, just robota is forced labor, more used in reference to the corvee system of austria

          • kristina [she/her]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            lmao he probably lived to watch czechoslovakia hit the communism button

            edit: apparently the nazis named him the second most wanted person in czechia? but didnt realize he died of pneumonia during the occupation. his brother however was caught and died in the Bergen Belsen camp near the end of the war :\

            • Vncredleader [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              the thing in his wiki page "inspired by american pragmatic liberalism" is eyebrow raising. He seems good generally but very anti-communist and of that intellectual class that Orwell belongs to, the one that saw communism and nazism as the same thing. Which turned out not so great for his nation in the end. Didn't even the liberal leaders say they would face Germany and the Entente's wrath so long as Stalin was willing to fight alongside them?

              • kristina [she/her]
                ·
                edit-2
                3 years ago

                yes i just read his discussion on why he isnt a communist and its mostly gibberish. it was also written in 1924 so no one had yet seen the receipts of communism in action yet. he says he cares so much for the poor but offers no solutions. he says the communists act like they care for the poor but are like him, they offer no solutions. but what he does acknowledge is the communists certainly do destroy the previous order that impoverished people, though he believes they would just end up the same. but of course, no receipts yet for communist leadership because russia was still mired in conflict. he would also complain about how communists kept saying 'wait 2 more years or 4 more years' to poor people, saying that even waiting that long is a travesty. but obviously that wasnt being fixed in that timeframe by the capitalist government, right? the capitalist government never would even give a timeframe!

                heres one of the stupidest quotes:

                I have already said that real poverty is no institution but a disaster. You can reverse all orders but you will not prevent human beings from strokes of bad luck, from sickness, from the suffering of hunger and cold, from the need of a helpful hand. Do whatever you like, disaster presents human beings with a moral, not a social task. The language of communism is hard; it does not talk of the values of sympathy, willingness, help and human solidarity; it says with self-confidence that it is not sentimental. But this lack of sentimentality is the worst thing for me, since I am just as sentimental as any maid, as any fool, as any decent person is; only rogues and demagogues are not sentimental. Apart from sentimental reasons you will not hand a glass of water to your neighbor; rational motives will not even bring you to help and raise a person who has slipped.

                • Vncredleader [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Jesus that is undiscernible from a modern libertarian or Vaush or something. "doesn't talk of the values of solidarity"? The Soviets put solidarity in every other word. "Moral, not social task" for a playwright he sure does seem to not know how to use words or at least is unwilling to define terms.

                  I can see the "pragmatic liberalism" which is to say Progressive Era American politics, in which you see social ills and human suffering as individual moral failings that those endowed with wealth and status are responsible for helping out a bit thus making them enlightened. Andrew Carnegie did lots of donations in my home of Pittsburgh, he gave a decent helping hand at times and genuinely seemed to want to bring "culture" to the poor......he also murdered strikers, caused their abject poverty, and saw misery as a test for him personally and morally and not a problem he caused. It's what is aggravating about the progressive era, you have houses set up for "at risk women" for instance, but they really served to shame single mothers and "fix" the poor (ie the people who are poor) instead of fixing poverty. Settlement Houses played a massive role in gentrification and embodied the sentimentality fetish that views suffering from the pov of the middle class or higher taking pity, never from that of the workers themselves

  • kristina [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates

    BASED

      • kristina [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        diddling kids is execution worthy offense tbf that means most of greek society had to go

        if u wanted a based greek philosopher it'd be pythagoras, probably, idk. he probably diddled kids too

        • Vncredleader [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          He wasn't killed for that though. They probably diddled kids as he was executed. It had to do with him telling the trial (which was sure to let him off) that he was smarter and knew the proper punishment, which should be that they thank him and feed him free of charge for life. He got an innocent verdict flipped to nearly a unanimous guilty with a death sentence cause he couldn't not be a little shit.

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      thats the joke actually, Aristophanes was a playwright and a comedian

      the play isnt 100% based but has some amusing moments and is a critique of many of the rigidities of athenian society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblywomen

  • SoyViking [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There will no longer be either rich or poor

    Doesn't sound very succdem to me

    Slaves

    Now you're talking. But still, no rich people? How are you going to make succdemmery without rich people to suck up to?