Skip to main content

Is freedom truly realized in communism?

 “Why is the concept of “freedom” not appropriate for a society in which I can live ‘free’ from rule and exploitation?”

The contradiction between freedom and communism lies in the absoluteness of the individual will expressed in the concept of freedom. 

The absoluteness of the will is the way in which private property owners relate to each other. The individual will counts absolutely, it has freedom to dispose over its own property, and excludes all others from its property. Its sociality comes to it as an unconscious force of nature. This absoluteness of the individual will, which inevitably stands against members of society, cannot exist in communism, because in communism production is carried out collectively with the means of production held in common and the product is also consumed by all. Accordingly, the labor of the individual will exists as a part of the total social will. On the one hand, as a part of this, it determines it; on the other hand, however, it also relativizes itself in it.


Also, in communism, your individual will won’t necessarily count absolutely. There you live in a society which, on the one hand, benefits your interests, however at the same time you must also qualify and limit your will. The utilization of the productivity which a society stands on implies that your will does not count in it absolutely. 


This is of course self-evident. However, it also nicely shows the idiocy of freedom which can seem reasonable only in capitalism. How is this supposed to work, that a will counts absolutely in a society? 1. As with Robinson Crusoe when there are no other wills, thus no society. 2. If a society is subjected to a single will. A god-like autocrat who subordinates all other wills to his absolute power, which is nothing other than a power fantasy. 3. Or in a capitalist society where all members of society want a social power which places their will in the right against other wills. One’s own will is thus qualified simultaneously against other legitimate wills.


The peculiar thing is not that the individual will is qualified in a society, but that this qualification occurs as its absolute validity is enforced. The qualification of individual wills against each other occurs through the authorization of individual wills. Therefore, society exists in capitalism as a negative relation of individual wills against each other. On the one hand, in capitalism people of course depend on each other. However they exercise this always mutually against one another. Their disposing will is used as a means for extorting social power. The ideal of freedom suits only such a society, thus of a will which counts absolutely against others and at the same time does not want to bend to the extortion of other wills. 


It is clear that in a reasonable society where social production is about meeting needs, a single will can't count absolutely. Why in a democracy does freedom count as a higher value? Because it perfectly describes the willing relationship of private property owners to each other. Freedom perfectly describes the negative relation of wills to one another. By virtue of my proprietary will, I exclude all other members of society from the possession of my property. Freedom is therefore sensible in a society in which individual wills in principle relate to each other antagonistically. Mutual exclusion as private property owners is the content of the antagonism. In a communist society, individual wills do not relate to each other antagonistically, but complementarily, as part of a general social will which has as its purpose the production and reproduction of the members of society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The concept of cultural appropriation – a critique of racism on its own foundations

Original here: https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/das-konzept-der-kulturellen-aneignung-eine-kritik-des-rassismus-auf-seinen-eigenen-grundlagen/ In recent years, a new form of racism,  cultural appropriation,  has been criticized in some anti-racist circles . They always discover this where members of a group adopt cultural productions (e.g. certain cultural customs, hairstyles, items of clothing,...) that, according to advocates of the concept of cultural appropriation, come from other groups, namely those who have less power over the acquiring group due to racial discrimination. When criticizing cultural appropriation, respect for these cultures is demanded. This respect should then contribute to combating racial discrimination. There was criticism that a non-indigenous artist in Canada integrated elements of indigenous art into her artwork.  1  Even when “white”  2  people wear dreadlocks or throw colored powder at each other (a practice inspired by th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Democracy and True Democracy

“... I think that we agree on our criticism of the ruling democratic system. Except that this system doesn’t have anything to do with true popular government. Somehow, I think your criticism is misguided, if you want to say something against democracy.” I doubt that we really agree. But first things first: on the one hand, it could be irrelevant what you want to call that form of government which ensures that the citizens elect a government that they regularly entrust their affairs to, despite being constantly at odds with those who are elected and their policies for good reasons. Put “parliamentary system” or “ruling political system” or democracy in quotation marks or whatever. One thing, however, is clear: this political system has governed the citizens here for decades and, for all the complaining by the citizens about what the administrations are doing to them, it has at the same time established itself as a political system that is always appreciated by voters, making it un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Hunting - On the history of ideas about anti-communism

A rough and dirty translation from an article "Gespensterjagd -- Zur Ideengeschichte des Antikommunismus" from Gruppen Gegen Kapital Und Nation (Groups Against Capital and Nation). Original can be found here: https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/gespensterjagd-zur-ideengeschichte-des-antikommunismus/ “A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism."“ All the powers of old Europe have united in a holy hunt against this specter,” wrote Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto — and that, contrary to other claims in that work, is a pretty true statement. Hatred and fear of radical change in civil society is as old as its revolutionary implementation itself. At the latest with the French Revolution, which did not operate in a religious disguise like the Dutch and English revolutions, and which was much more radical in its theoretical justification than the American one, the fear of the “Red Terror” arose (before “La Grande, by the way. “Terreur” really started in ...
Post a Comment
Read more