Marxism and Antinatalism
It boggles my mind why a hardcore Marxist would ever procreate children into a world where capital goods are so thoroughly privatized it would be near impossible to change to some communally owned mode of economic living.
Being that labor and production are the core of how "modern" humans survive, and being that laboring is so pervasive in the human condition, it cannot be shrugged off as some minor detail either. So combining these facts:
It follows that it would then be best to not expose new people into this unjust, intractable situation.
Being that labor and production are the core of how "modern" humans survive, and being that laboring is so pervasive in the human condition, it cannot be shrugged off as some minor detail either. So combining these facts:
- Modern human living requires the very central aspect of laboring in a privately owned milieu.
- This privately owned situation is near impossible to change.
It follows that it would then be best to not expose new people into this unjust, intractable situation.
Comments (55)
Yep.
But not moral.
Just like preaching against procreating —> species extinction (auto-genocide).
I suppose it helps that antinatalism is just another capitalist bromide, an effort to individualize and moralize what are, in fact, systemic problems. After the capitalists, after the liberals, the antinatalists get the wall after the revolution. Alternatively we'll give them the pistol and they can do it themselves and fulfil their deathlong ambitions.
:smirk: :up:
If there are Marxists who also believe in inevitable capitalism, then I imagine they are too busy trying to square one belief against the other ever to get busy procreating. But if they do, they might find a Christian who thinks we are all already damned, for example. Hopelessness can be quite sexy.
Quoting 180 Proof
Without getting into desirability, mankind going extinct as a result of individuals' voluntary choice not to procreate is not immoral.
It is exactly such situations that offer struggle. Humans are built to engage in struggle.
Even the rich and powerful talk about how they look back at their lives and remember most fondly 'the struggle' they had to 'achieve who and what they are today,' and the 'legacy they will leave.'
When the going gets tough, the antinatalists seem to want to run away and prevent any future humans from facing struggle/suffering. A somewhat cowardly approach imo.
There's nothing wrong with destroying the village if all the villagers voluntary want it to be so.
Glad to know Marxism has overcome the tendency towards Stalinist and Maoist style "reeducation" and mass murder policies...
It is intractable. The Marxist revolution is no closer to fruition then it was when Lenin and crew tried it (poorly) over 100 years ago.
But then aren't the children being used to promote a cause? If you believe in deontological ethics surrounding the idea of not using people as a means, this is problematic. Also, if Marxism is the closest ideal society, there is no proof that Marxism is closer to any kind of fruition than any other time. Marxists are acutely aware of the plight of the worker. It would also be problematic to put more workers into a world that isn't even close to achieving the ideal social setup (according to Marxists at least).
You handle disagreement very well I see.
I've seen self-reported ones here and elsewhere.. Now, if that is actually the case in action, thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes outside of the forum in a very theoretical setting, I don't know.
You would think.
Well, thanks for tempering that. I really appreciate your benevolence.
:up: Yep, answered pretty much how I would.
If the village is hostile to the villagers, then certainly one wouldn't want to expose more villagers to the village.
Ditto. :smirk:
No, I think you misunderstood. I did not mean to suggest that children are being produced by Marxists merely as tools to bring on the new society. I was addressing your main points, from which you said it follows that Marxists should not have children:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Against the first point, many Marxists think that life is nevertheless worthwhile. Against the second, virtually all Marxists believe change is possible. So you did not carry your point.
Because since 1848, we’ve seen great strides in the whole Marxist revolution working out?
This is bad faith.
Besides being historically false (re: social revolution), it's also irrelevant to what your opening post argues. Additionally, history is not destiny, and certainly not the last 174 years of history.
Capitalist realism just isn't compatible with Marxism, let alone an antinatalism motivated by capitalist realism. Don't believe that capitalism is a metaphysical (re: necessary and immutable) order, rather than a historical one that can be replaced.
Hippies in the 60s? What are we talking? Can’t be civil rights movement.
Quoting Maw
No it isn’t but I mean, where’s the revolution? Seems further away than ever before.
Christ dude you've been on a philosophy forum for seven years and somehow the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, etc. escape you as examples in which presumed immutable social conditions dissolved. Social, economic, political conditions are not permanent. You need to get it through your head that to suggest otherwise is inconsistent with Marxism.
Straw men. The ones that stuck weren’t Marxist. There is no us slavery, France eventually had a democracy of sorts, Haiti did become its own nation. None of these were Marxist. Russian ended in a whimper and is now owned by oligarchs and a czarist styled dictator.
Quoting Maw
Quoting Maw
Quoting Maw
Quoting Maw
I’m not arguing about immutable social conditions which I never brought up in the first place. Just Marxism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
:gasp:
Marxisms were tried and failed. All you got is the Nordic model at best.
wow then I guess Marxists shouldn't have kids, you absolutely nailed it dude, congrats!
Haven’t even seen an inkling of a groundswell of Marxist anything. At best you’re getting legislation for 32 hour work weeks but doubtful. Antinatalism doesn’t need to rely on the whole system changing. Marxism most definitely does. Antinatalism is an ethic any individual can take on. There is no end goal to society, only one less person to suffer who would have. In Marxist terms..one less worker to do the struggle dance. I don’t see why Marxist’s shouldn’t use situational AN to their advantage. Boycotting more workers till true change. Not worth perpetuating capitalist goals.
It's no big surprise that the antinatalist in you would respond so, to such an inconvenient truth
Anything ending with ‘ism’ that was generated by popular culture and isn’t a coherent body of thought, is just a name given to some sort of excessive or exaggerated belief (positivism, deteriorationism, etc.). If there’s no coherence, you don’t have a true ‘ism.’ Where is the rationality in antinatalism?
Until then, why produce more workers? Situational AN seems appropriate. They are feeding exactly that which they loathe.
What do you mean? There are lots of arguments that are coherent and "rational". I'm just saying, Marxists want a complete change in the way we do our socioeconomic-political arrangements. Until that time, it would make sense to not put more proletariats into the capitalists' grip.
I’m not totally clear about where antinatalism fits into all this. Do you mean a Marxist would find it immoral to raise children under a system so contrary to their version of social good? It’s not clear if Marx had ever claimed to have created a blueprint for a good world; could you define this good you claim Marxists are looking for?
TCM was producing a superstructure from the aims and premises of capitalism; in some ways refining it. ‘Buy local,’ ‘return of analog,’ the need for nations to become economically self-reliant, and the need for stability in the meaning of currency are some examples of social phenomena that intersect with Marx’s ideas, but they have mostly been subversive ideas.
We have a future that is somewhat bleak for those who are emotionally invested in consciously building this superstructure. However, I don’t think it’s solely a personified reality-authoring that Marx and Engels had in mind. It is also a type of refinement of existing attitudes and values to their ideological core.
This.
Quoting kudos
Unexploited, unalienated worker paradise I guess. If it's not a better world under Marxist structure, then of course, the whole thing is meaningless as a goal to seek.
Quoting kudos
Agreed there. Quoting kudos
I don't think so. I think they had a project for a new way of socioeconomic life.
Communism.
Reality is too messy for "paradise". I've sketched a quasi-convergence of "Marxism & antinatalism" in an old post (elaborated further in a second link embedded therein) to which you did not directly reply:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/624891 (re: post-Marxist stakeholder political economy (e.g. "green" economic democracy), or a radicalization of the Nordic model that "withers away" corporate welfare statism). Minimize structural alientation (i.e. anti-democratic inequalities) in order to minimize structural imbalances (mal-distribution of "social goods" which reproduces / exacerbates intractable social pathologies). I agree with old Marxists and Bakuninists/Kropotkinists: radically less hyper-consumption (shareholder-control) – not merely less worker-descendants (fewer stakeholders) who are, in fact, the raison d'etre of revolutionary struggles.
Was there ever a call out directly for radical change? Besides, what’s so radical about the working class controlling their path in collective will power? We consider that normal today in the form of guilds, unionization, labour parties, and practically nobody dares call themselves a Marxist.
TCM was less than a hundred pages long and it didn’t contain the itinerary for socioeconomic life in detail, but set forth the types of ideas that life would be built upon; how capitalism could revitalize itself from the core identity. I’m not an expert on Marx so someone can please correct me if I’m wrong, but the subject of Communist government did not represent a large portion of Marx’s work.
I just didn't know how to reply to it. Interesting.
All of this just doesn't seem likely. Until then, best not throw more workers into the mix.
He wanted a world revolution that eventually gave power to the state which "withered away" to a classless society controlled by proletariat-led councils. It seems the lack of details lead to "appending to" his thought (e.g. Leninism, Maoism, etc.).
But either way, I personally can't get on board with most forms of Marxism because of its tendency for "group-think", its impatience (and then downright persecution of) free thought/speech/press, and its tendency towards dictatorship (Stalin/Mao) or oligarchy (Russian and Chinese politburos). Granted, no state ever "got it right", it's telling that the application ended up being various templates of the same thing.
Well, then don't breed, comrade.