"Re-Training" and Sundry Other Marxist Ideas

1)  Interesting passage from Eric Voegelin quoted by Russell Kirk.  We all remember "re-training"--which was supposed to remedy all the ills of offshoring jobs, right?

Marx was there first.

Man was supposed to emerge from the revolution as an integrally productive being that at his will would work one day at a machine, the next in an office, and the third day as a litterateur. A primitive but unmistakable formulation of the idea occurs on the occasion of his complaint that division of labor produces such occupational fixations as hunter, fisher, etc. This evil will be overcome in “Communist society, where nobody has an exclusive range of activity, but everybody can train himself in every branch; where society regulates general production and thereby makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another thing tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, to be a husbandman in the evening, and to indulge in critical work after supper, as it pleases me, without any necessity for me ever to become a hunter, fisherman, husbandman, or critic.” (Here Voegelin has been quoting directly from Marx.)..

The eternally re-trainable man, eh?

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2)  Envy is the principal tool of Marxism--not to mention the Democrat Party.  Regardless, envy remains a vice.

[...] communism promises equality of condition[.]  Tocqueville pointed out a century and a half ago how dangerous the doctrine of equality is, and how difficult to resist -even though it leads toward universal boredom and decadence. In democratic times, many people are ashamed of being different from others; and many more people are envious of those who truly are different. Especially there prevails envy of men and women of wealth, or fancied wealth - an emotion deliberately worked upon by the communists.

To set up Holy Equality as a moral principle supplies the envious with a self-righteous apology for their consuming vice.

Few people care to admit to themselves, “Being envious, I covet my neighbor’s goods.” But put the matter after this fashion: “I learn from Karl Marx that inequality is caused by capitalism, private property, churches, and other evil institutions. I want justice for the people! We need a revolution.” Thus personal envy is veiled by an ideological pretext - which may be used to justify murder on a large scale. Ideology of this sort salves one’s conscience

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3)  What's "equality"?  It ain't the money, honey.

Nevertheless, the very word “equality” has a sweet sound in the ears of many persons who would not themselves dream of bloodletting. Does not Christianity speak of equality? Have we not established equality before the law as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence? Does not the Declaration of Independence say that all men are created equal? What then can be wrong with equality?

Much, if by that we mean “equality of condition.” The Christian doctrine of equality teaches that all human beings are of equal worth in the sight of God: that God is no respecter of rank and wealth; God judges human beings impartially; all are sinners in some degree...

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4)  This Marxist stuff could have consequences which are .....ahhh.......unpleasant.

...Although some people have tried to make a religion out of democracy, they have not succeeded; and those few who have tried to make a religion out of “democratic capitalism” have failed ludicrously.

It is for moral causes, and out of religious faith, that men and women will resist the Children of Darkness. Perhaps such a renewal of religious belief will occur before the end of this century; one can imagine it. Perhaps a great many people will come to perceive, with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, that communism and other fanatic ideologies are the enemies of true moral order. If they do not so perceive, quite possibly the Republic may end with both a whimper and a bang...

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5)  The real failure of "conservative" propagandists (who are actually faux-conservatives):

We find fairly widespread in these United States a “capitalistic” version of Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism - more’s the pity. It is not a theoretical “democratic capitalism” that can preserve, unaided, order and justice and freedom. Materialism was an American vice when Alexis de Tocqueville travelled in the United States. That vice has not diminished in power. People who maintain that production and consumption are the ends of human existence presently will find themselves impoverished materially, as well as spiritually...

Thus ends today's homily.