"WHY SOCIALISM SAYS SLACKING IS THEFT" ENDNOTES
[1]. "Il y a des fainéants, c'est-à-dire des voleurs." Henri de Saint Simon, Œuvres de Saint-Simon & d'Enfantin, vol. 18 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1868), 130. "Le fainéant" is, in today's English, "the slacker."
[2]. "La Nature a imposé́ a chacun l'obligation de travailler. Nul n'a pu sans crime soustraire au travail." Gracchus Babeuf, Analyse de la doctrine de Babeuf, tribun du peuple: proscrit par le Directoire exécutif pour avoir dit la vérité́ (Paris: 1796), 1.
[3]. Vladimir Lenin, "On Equality [August 30, 1918]," in Voices of Revolt: Speeches of Lenin (New York: International Publishers, 1928), 62.
[4]. Bernard Shaw, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (New York: Brentanto's Publishers, 1928), 400.
[5]. Lucien Deslinières, Entretiens Socialistes (Paris: Chez le Auteur, 1901), 36–37.
[6]. "Le fainéant, le débauché́, qui, sans accomplir aucune tâche sociale, jouit comme un autre, et souvent plus qu'un autre, des produits de la société́, doit être poursuivi comme voleur et parasite : nous nous devons à nous-mêmes de ne lui donner rien, mais, puisque néanmoins il faut qu'il vive, de le mettre en surveillance et de le contraindre au travail." Pierre Proudhon, Qu'est-ce que la propriété? ou Recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement (Paris: Chez J F Brocard, 1840), 194. "Le fainéant" is, in today's English, "the slacker." The second word Proudhon uses ("le débauché́") I have translated as "idler." "Le débauché́" is related to the English "debaucher," but in Proudhon's French, it means someone who avoids work, making "idler" a more apt translation and certainly a clearer one than "rake," which is the translation provided by an earlier English version of Proudhon's work.
[7]. There are well over fifty speeches in the Latin America Network Information Center's Castro Speech Database in which he attacks "idlers," "loafers," and the "lazy"; see http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html. In one example, Castro tells us, "What we must create is a climate of condemnation for the scoundrels, the loafers, the idlers, and parasites" ("Castro Gives Speech on 30th CDR Anniversary [Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services, September 9, 1990]," Castro Speech Database, accessed December 4, 2020, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1990/19900929.html).
[8]. "Decíamos que los obreros tienen una posición dura contra la vagancia, el ausentismo y el parasitismo, como los maestros la tenían en el otro problema. Y los obreros sienten las consecuencias que trae: la carga de trabajo peor se la dan al mejor, en fin, múltiples ejemplos de ese tipo. Además, es un gravamen, es un consumidor que no produce. Y nadie más que los obreros pueden desarrollar ese sentido de lucha y tener una actitud dura frente al parásito [parasite], y frente al consumidor que no produce porque no le da la gana, porque quiere vivir de los demás. Y que hemos dicho que ese es un ladrón, ¡un ladrón! [a thief, a thief!] Los niños, los ancianos, los enfermos, esos lo tendrán todo. Se trabaja para ellos, para los que no pueden producir, para los que lo necesitan. Para el vago [slacker] no. Porque no se van a convertir en nuestros explotadores [exploiters], nuestros nuevos explotadores." Fidel Castro, "Castro Addresses Plenum of Basic Industry Workers, Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services in Spanish 8 Dec 1970," Departamento de Versiones Taquigraficas del Gobierno Revolucionario, accessed December 4, 2020, http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1970/esp/f071270e.html.
[9]. "Chacun produise selon son aptitude et ses forces, que chacun consomme selon ses besoins." Louis Blanc, Nouveau discours de M. Louis Blanc sur l'organisation du travail devant l'assemblée générale des délègues des travailleurs (Paris: Commission du Gouvernement Pour Travailleurs, 1848), 10.
[10]. "Plus un homme peut, plus il doit. … D'où l'axiome : De chacun, selon ses facultés. Là est le DEVOIR." Louis Blanc, La Historie de la Révolution de 1848, vol. 1 (Paris: C. Marpon, 1880), 148.
[11]. This wording is inspired by libertarian thinker Robert Nozick's phrase "from each as they choose." Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 160, Kindle.
[12]. Joseph H. Carens, "Rights and Duties in an Egalitarian Society," Political Theory 14, no. 1 (February 1986): 31.
[13]. Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation, 3rd ed. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1944), 437.
[14]. In his Crimes of Commerce, socialist superstar Charles Fourier explains that socialism "will return to duty and return to productive work those legions of parasites called merchants" ("elle fera rentrer dans le devoir et retourner au travail productif ces légions de parasites appelés marchands"). Socialism rejects the lack of mandatory duty in liberal society and the fact it means we are free to do essentially any work we chose, including work that others look down on. Socialism starts, as Fourier reports, by making all "return to duty," thereby giving society the ability to define what work counts as the "productive work" we are to be permitted to perform. Charles Fourier, Manuscrits de Charles Fourier: Crime du commerce (Paris: Phalange, 1845), 19.
[15]. "Nous reviendrons avec amour a l'OBEISSANCE." Prosper Enfantin, et. al., Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition Premier Année, 3rd ed. (Paris: Au Bureau de l'Organisateur, 1831), 330.
[16]. Shaw, Intelligent Woman's Guide, 78.
[17]. "Ce régime épargnera le travail humain, dont le gaspillage est immoral. Cette épargne sera réalisée par plusieurs causés, dont les trois suivantes : La concurrence sera supprimée. … L'oisiveté sera supprimée. … La production sera centralisée autant qu'ilest possible." Pierre Deloire [Charles Peguy], "De La Cite Socialiste," Le Revue Socialiste 25, no. 1 (1897): 187–88.
[18]. All of these attacks stem from the hidden premise that the time in our lives should be treated as society's time. For more on this assumption and additional concrete examples of it in socialist writings, the Society's Time page on this website. This page is based on text excerpted from the full article you're reading with extra examples of socialists treating our time as society's time added.
[19]. "Chaque individu dans sa sphère, travaille non pour lui, mais pour accomplir la tâche de l'humanité́." Richard Lahautière, De la loi sociale (Paris: Chez Prevot, 1841), 64.
[20]. Max Shachtman, The Fight for Socialism: The Principles and Programs of the Workers Party (New York: New International Publishing Co., 1946), 128-129.
[21]. Edward Bellamy, Equality, 3rd ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898), 389.
[22]. Shaw, Intelligent Woman's Guide, 400.
[23]. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Practice of Denunciation in Stalinist Russia, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: The National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 1994), iii.
[24]. Fitzpatrick, Practice of Denunciation,2: "Many denunciations were informed by personal malice: the desire to settle scores, cause trouble for a neighbor, and so on."
[25]. Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship vs. Democracy, A Reply to Karl Kautsky (New York: Workers Party of America, 1922), 142.
[26]. "Dans une coopération pour la vie, fainéant devient synonyme de voleur. Quiconque, pouvant travailler, s'obstine dans l'oisiveté, est le parasite de ses compagnons." Georges Renard, Le Régime Socialiste, 6th ed. (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1907), 27.
[27]. Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation, 3rd ed. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1942), 911.
[28]. "Quel sont les devoirs? Il ses résument en un mot; 'le Travail,' Tous les membres de société doivent concourir, par le travail individuel, au bien-être général — Tant qu'il végétera dans le monde un oisif, la société sera en péril." Richard Lahautière, Le petite catéchisme de la réforme sociale (Paris: 1839), 5.
[29]. "De l'oisiveté à la paresse et de l'une et l'autre à tous les vices et à tous les désordres, il n'y a qu'un pas. Un homme qui ne donne pas son contingent de production à l'association est plus qu'inutile, il nuit." Constantin Pecqueur, Économie sociale des intérêts du commerce, de l'industrie, de l'agriculture et de la civilisation (Paris: Dessart, 1839), 371.
[30]. Robert Owen, A Development of the Plans and Principles of Self-Supporting Home Colonies (London: Home Colonization Society, 1841), 7.
[31]. Ernest "Che" Guevara, "On Party Militancy [1963]," in Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, ed. John Gerassi (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), 201.
[32]. Philippe Buonarroti, Buonarroti's History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality, trans. James Bronterre (London: H. Hetherington, 1836), 221.
[33]. William Morris, "Useful Work versus Useless Toil," in Signs of Change (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896), 153.
[34]. "Et les paresseux?— Les paresseux nous n'en connaissons pas Comment voulez-vous qu'il y en ait, quand le travail est si agréable, et quand I 'oisiveté et la paresse sont aussi infâmes parmi nous que le vol est ailleurs?" Étienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 5th Edition (Paris: Au Bureau Populaire, 1848), 102.
[35]. Charles Fourier, Theory of Social Organization (New York: C. P. Somerby, 1876), 114.
[36]. Mao Zedong, "Economic and Financial Problems in the Anti-Japanese War 2, On the Development of Agriculture," Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 6 (Secunderabad, Kranti Publications, 1990), 211-214.
[37]. Julius Nyerere, "Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism" (Dar Es Salaam, 1962) https://ethics.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Nyerere-UjamaaThe-Basis-of-African-Socialism-1962.pdf.
[38]. Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution, (London: Laurence & Wishart, 1947), 111.
"Thousands of practical forms and methods of accounting and controlling the rich, the rogues and the idlers must be devised and put to a practical test. … In one place … half a dozen workers who shirk their work … will be put in prison. In another place they will be put to cleaning latrines. In a third place they will be provided with "yellow tickets" after they have served their time, so that everyone shall keep an eye on them, as harmful persons, until they reform. In a fourth place, one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot…. He who does not work, neither shall he eat"—this is the practical commandment of socialism. This is how things should be organised practically." is from Vladimir Lenin, "How to Organize Competition," Lenin Collected Works, V. 26 (Moscow: ), 411-414.
[39]. Shachtman, Fight for Socialism, 128.
[40]. Werner Sombart, Socialism and the Social Movement, trans. M. Epstein (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1909), 25.
[41]. Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), v. Harrington is the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.
[42]. Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism, v.
[43]. Marx wrote repeatedly about his desire for child factory labor as an aspect of the socialist education system. For example, in his famous work Capital, Marx writes that "the germ of the education of the future is present in the factory system; this education will, in the case of every child over a given age, combine productive labour with instruction and gymnastics, not only as one of the methods of adding to the efficiency of production, but as the only method of producing fully developed human beings." Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Ben Fowkes, vol. 1 (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), 614.
[44]. Karl Marx, On the First International, trans. Saul K. Padover (New York McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973), 26.
[45]. Even though it was Louis Blanc who coined the famous socialist axiom "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need," it's the fact that Karl Marx adopted it as his own that made this the defining goal of socialism. Marx said socialist society would eventually "inscribe on its banners: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'" (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Marx and Engels: Selected Works, vol. 2 [London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1950], 23). The first half of this axiom—"from each according to his ability"—is the mandatory duty portion. It's easily achieved: all the socialist state need do is put us under its thumb. This is what morphs our time into what socialism treats as society's time and what thereby leads socialism to consider slacking to be "theft." It's the second half of the axiom, "to each according to their needs," that's hard to achieve. Karl Marx called for "constant over-production" as the means to achieve this goal—something that is both impossible and unsustainable. See the Red Flags Press paper "The Secret Sauce of Socialism" for details.
[46]. Socialist theory says that a world based on "to each according to their need" is a world in which all needed goods and service are free for the taking worldwide forever. Socialists also use the word "abundance" (often souped up to superabundance, etc.) as likewise meaning a world in which everything is free for all worldwide. And they say that creating this world requires "constant over-production." To see how socialists write about these concepts, see the Red Flags Press paper "The Secret Sauce of Socialism."
[47]. Eugene Debs, "Revolutionary Unionism: Speech at Chicago, November 25, 1905," in Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches (Chicago: George G. Renneker Co., 1908), 441. See the Red Flags Press paper "The Secret Sauce of Socialism."
[48]. "C'est pourquoi ln supériorité́ du socialisme est éclatante; il arrivera dans un espace de temps très restreint à créer la surabondance de tous les produits nécessaires à l'homme ; on devra allons limiter la production, ce qui permettra d'affecter le surplus de la main-d'œuvre à des travaux d'embellissement et de réduire la durée du travail." Lucien Deslinières, Comment se réalisera le Socialisme (Paris: Libraire du Parti Socialiste, 1919), 20.
[49]. G. A. Cohen, "Marx's Dialectic of Labor," Philosophy and Public Affairs 3, no. 3 (Spring 1974): 257.
[50]. "La société la plus parfaite est évidemment celle dont la population active est la plus nombreuse par rapport à la population totale, et dont les producteurs réels sont les plus nombreux par rapport à la population active. Dans aucun cas ces deux derniers éléments ne peuvent être égaux, car il est impossible de se passer complètement d'intermédiaires. Le premier but à viser pour accroitre la production est donc de l'aire disparaître dans la plus large mesure les parasites qui ne travaillent pas et ceux qui. Travaillant sans produire, pourraient être supprimés par une meilleure organisation de la société." Lucien Deslinières, L'Application du Système Collectiviste (Paris: Librairie de la Revue Socialiste, 1899), 37.
[51]. "Ce qui est nouveau, c'est qu'il deviendra une obligation universelle; c'est aussi qu'il sera réduit au minimum par le seul fait que tout le monde prendra part à la besogne et que les parasites et les inutiles seront rentrés dans les rangs de l'armée laborieuse." Georges Renard, Le régime socialiste—principes de son organisation politique et économique, 6th ed. (Paris: Librairies Felix Alcan, 1907), 48.
[52]. William Morris, "Work In a Factory As It Might Be II," in Political Writings: Contributions to Justice and Commonweal 1883–1890, ed. Nicolas Salmon (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1994), 40.
[53]. Morris, "Useful Work," 154.
[54]. Paul Lafargue, Le droit à la paresse: réfutation du droit au travail, de 1848 (Paris: Henry Oroil, 1883).
[55]. The reality is that Lafargue held the same negative view of rights and justice as his father-in-law, Karl Marx (Lafargue married Marx's daughter Laura). To learn more about Karl Marx's view that individual rights are "verbal rubbish" and "nonsense," see the RFP paper "Our 'So-Called' Rights." As Marx did, Lafargue saw rights in liberal society as a byproduct of the right to own property—a right socialism was to do away with. Socialist society was going to be literally beyond the need of rights, which obviously makes it clear Lafargue didn't endorse a right to be lazy in any sense we would understand it. Here's a sample of Mr. Lafargue's thinking on the subject: "The ideas of Justice which encumber the minds of the civilized, and which are based on mine and thine, will vanish like a bad dream when common property shall have taken the place of private property" ("Les idées de Justice qui encombrent les tètes des civilisés et qui sont basées sur le mien et le tien, s'évanouiront comme un mauvais rêve, dès que la propriété commune aura remplacé la propriété privée"). Paul Lafargue, Idéalisme et matérialisme dans la conception de l'histoire: conférence de Jean Jaurès et réponse de Paul Lafargue (Paris: Parti Ouvrire, 1895), 25.
[56]. Paul Lafargue, La propriété, origine et évolution, vol. 2 (Paris: Librarie Ch. Delagrave, 1895). Lafargue attacks parasites a dozen times in this one work.
[57]. Paul Lafargue, quoted in Léon Gani, "Jules Guesde, Paul Lafargue et les problèmes de population," Population (French ed.) 34, no. 6 (November–December 1979): 1032. "Natural history has shown that all parasites also have their parasites. Social history corroborates the fact. As the bourgeois are the social lice living on the working class, the servants of the bourgeoisie (statesmen, soldiers, magistrates, prostitutes, journalists, etc.) who share with them the loot stolen from the producers, are parasites on these social lice." ("L'histoire démontre que tous les parasites ont leurs parasites. L'histoire sociale corrobore le fait. Si les bourgeois sont les poux sociaux vi classe ouvrière, les domestiques de la bourgeoisie [hommes d'Etat, soldats, magistrats, laquais, prostitutes, figuristes, etc.] qui partagent avec elle, les butins dérobais aux producteurs, sont les parasites de ces poux sociaux.")
[58]. Paul Lafargue, "Le Lendemain de la Révolution," Le Socialiste 3 (January 1888). "The capitalist proprietor is a useless mouth who consumes terribly. All consumed by the rich as well as by the domestics and others who serve the rich, and satisfy their tastes and needs, is pure waste. … This useless capital must be suppressed to reduce the costs of social production. The social revolution is charged to accomplish this work of economy. It will not destroy the property, as the anarchists inconsiderately ask, it will get rid of these parasites." ("Le propriétaire capitaliste est une bouche inutile. ils consomme terriblement. Tout ce que mandent un riche et les domestiques et autres gens qui le servent et satisfont ces goûts et ses besoins, est consommé en pure perte. … Le capitaliste étant inutile doit être supprimé pour diminuer les frais île la production sociale. La révolution sociale est chargée d'accomplir cette œuvre d'économie : elle ne détruira pas la propriété, comme le demandent inconsidérément les anarchistes, elle la débarrassera de ses parasites.")
[59]. Paul Lafargue, "Socialism and the Intellectuals," in The Right to Be Lazy and Other Studies, trans. Charles H. Kerr (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1907), 103.
[60]. Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 296.
[61]. Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, 296.
[62]. Lenin writes: the rich, the rogues and the idlers … will be provided with "yellow tickets" after they have served their time, so that everyone shall keep an eye on them, as harmful persons, until they reform." Vladimir Lenin, "How to Organize Competition," Lenin Collected Works, V. 26 (Moscow: ), 414.
[63]. Ralph A. Thaxton Jr., Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), ch. 4. Kindle Edition. Thaxton quotes the villager Pang Qinli, speaking about another villager who would soon die: "He was accused of being a lazybones and was forced to wear a white ribbon."
[64]. Thaxton, Catastrophe and Contention, ch. 4. Also see ch. 6 for discussion of how those who boasted good results were the "red achievers." Frank Dikötter also discusses white flags of shame and red flags of socialist glory in Mao's Great Famine (e.g., 36–37).
[65]. Thaxton, Catastrophe and Contention, ch. 6.
[66]. Xun Zhou, Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958–1962: An Oral History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 40.
[67]. Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, 294.
[68]. Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, 292–305. Chapter 34, "Violence," details the countless terrible ways in which individuals were maimed and murdered by government officials (292–305).
[69]. Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, 295.
[70]. Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, 117, 294.
[71]. Michael Stevens Smith and Frances Goldin, Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2014), 58, Kindle.
[72]. Michael Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could," Dissent, Fall 1978, 445.
[73]. This reality is demonstrated and explored in Red Flags Press paper: "The Keto-Friendly Philosophy."
[74]. "La Nature a imposé́ a chacun l'obligation de travailler. Nul n'a pu sans crime soustraire au travail." Gracchus Babeuf, Analyse de la doctrine de Babeuf, tribun du peuple: proscrit par le Directoire exécutif pour avoir dit la vérité́ (Paris: 1796), 1.
[75]. William Morris and E. Belfort Bax, The Manifesto of the Socialist League (London: Socialist League Office, 1885).
[76]. Forced, unpaid "voluntary labor" has been a standard feature in socialist regimes, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the People's Republic of China, the German Democratic Republic, socialist Cuba, and so on.
In the USSR, this work was nicknamed "subbotnik" and "voskresnik" from the Russian words for Saturday and Sunday, the days on which most "voluntary" labor took place. Frank Kaplan describes the intent of these days. Rather than Saturday and Sunday being a holiday from labor, these days were meant to be "a day on which rest is put aside for the joy of labor." The sham nature of the "voluntary" aspect of this work is found in its organization from the top down; for example, the workforce of, say, an entire plant was "volunteered" by its managers. Individual workers did not make a choice; they were told what to do. The only way in which this work resembled voluntary work is that it was unpaid. See Frank Kaplan, "The Origin and Function of the Subbotniks and Voskresniks," Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, April 1965, 30–39.
In an article written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Che Guevara's starting Cuba's program of unpaid "volunteer" labor, Yusimi Rodriguez provides insights into how little "volunteer" labor in Cuba has to do with personal choice. See Yusimi Rodriguez, "Doing Voluntary Work … Voluntarily," December 4, 2009, Havana Times, https://havanatimes.org/opinion/doing-voluntary-work%E2%80%A6voluntarily/.
[77]. August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, trans. Meta L. Stern (New York: Socialist Literature Co., 1910), 370.
[78]. Bebel, Woman and Socialism, 370.