"OUR 'SO-CALLED' RIGHTS" ENDNOTES
[1]. Marx, "On the Jewish Question," 40.
[2]. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Marx and Engels Selected Works, vol. 2 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1950), 23.
[3]. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[4]. Justine Lacroix, Jean-Yves Pranchère, and Sarah-Louise Raillard, "Was Karl Marx Truly against Human Rights? Individual Emancipation and Human Rights Theory," Revue française de science politique (English Edition) 62, no. 3 (2012): 47.
[5]. See "Marx Lives!" for a vivid illustration of the reality that Marx remains central to socialism today. And note that it's not only Marx but also his disciples. For example, even Vladimir Lenin—founder of the USSR's secret police and concentration camps—is promoted by today's socialists as being an early ecosocialist. See the page "Vladimir Lenin, Ecosocialist?" at our sibling site secretsauceofsocialism.org.
Another example of the reality that Marx and his thinking continues to define socialism, consider that the Democratic Socialists of America see themselves as a Marxist organization and at their 2017 convention celebrated the fact that they had become the largest Marxist organization in the US. David Weigel, "The socialist movement is getting younger and turning into a left-wing force," Chicago Tribune, August 6, 2017, https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-socialist-movement-bernie-sanders-20170806-story.html.
[6]. That socialism has been designed such that it requires socialist citizens be under compulsory duty to do as those running socialist society direct is no surprise. Socialism starts from the belief that such a duty is morally correct (which is why socialism has required the duty of "from each according to their ability" for over 170 years). Because socialism believes such a duty is morally right, it's only natural that socialism would be designed in the expectation of putting this duty to work in the functioning of socialist society. (What would be surprising is to have a philosophy that believed duty was morally correct that didn't use this power in its day to day operations.)
There are numerous aspects of the plans of socialism that are based on the assumption of duty. For example, socialist theory is explicit that constructing socialism requires the elimination of work judged to be "socially useless" and the transfer of the legions of individuals that socialists believe are currently preforming "socially useless" tasks to work approved by those running socialist society. It's by suppressing "useless" work and moving these workers to approved work that socialism is to achieve its many sales promises.
In our liberal society, the time in our life is treated as our personal property to use in essentially any way we wish. As such, there isn't the slightest chance of it being legal to outlaw countless jobs so as to constrain our work choices to those others approve of. It's socialism's foundation on the duty of "from each according to their ability" that makes the suppression of allegedly useless work possible. Socialist duty turns our time into what is effectively society's property and gives socialist society the power to limit our work choices. If we were left free to do whatever work we wish as is the case in liberal society, rather than constrained to those choices approved by society, socialist theory itself says socialism is impossible. To see examples of socialists calling for the suppression of "useless" work and its relation to constructing socialist society, see RFP paper "The Socialist Obsession: The Central Role of 'Parasites' In Socialist Thought."
[7]. French Socialist Louis Blanc is typically credited with developing the expression "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in the 1840s (though another French socialist, Étienne Cabet, also started using it at roughly the same time).
Here's one example of Blanc's using this expression in 1848: "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.]
[8]. As one of the many available examples demonstrating socialism continues to require the duty of "from each according to their ability, Democratic Socialists of America founder Michael Harrington writes: "The goal of socialism, clearly, is to overcome greed and act on the basis of 'to each according to his/her need, from each according to his/her ability.'" Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could," 445.
[9]. R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1921), 96. Emphasis original.
[10]. Today's socialists say Tawney should be considered a democratic socialist. See, for example, the description of Ross Terrill's biography R. H. Tawney and His Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973): "Economic historian, democratic socialist, educator, and British labor party activist, R. H. Tawney touched many worlds."
[11]. Michael Harrington, Socialism, Past and Future (New York: Mentor, 1992), 304–5.
[12]. Joseph H. Carens, "Rights and Duties in an Egalitarian Society," Political Theory 14, no. 1 (February 1986): 31; Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation, 3rd ed. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1944), 437.
[13]. Don't fall for claims that the requirement to pay taxes in our current liberal society is analogous to socialism's duty of "from each according to their ability." Such arguments are disingenuous at best.
In liberal society, our time is our own to use as we wish to define our lives. Income taxes apply after we choose what to do with our time. We decide how to use our lives. And then we are taxed on the income that results from our choices.
In stark contrast, socialist duty gives society control of our time before we make our choices. Socialist duty morphs our time into what is effectively society's time and socialist thinkers and socialist rulers have long treated it as such.
The duty to pay taxes doesn't give those running society the power to suppress alleged "parasites." Socialist duty does. And socialist nations have.
The duty to pay taxes doesn't give those running society the power to outlaw jobs that socialists consider "socially useless." Socialist duty does. And socialist nations have.
The duty to pay taxes doesn't give those running society the power to set caps on the number of people permitted to pursue careers in the arts and other fields. Socialist duty does. And socialist nations have.
The duty to pay taxes doesn't permit society to make it illegal for us to use our lives to start our own business. Socialist duty does. And, again, socialist nations have.
Fidel Castro tells us: "Socialism cannot exist … unless every citizen is used in an optimum, rational way." Socialism's existence requires us to be used—used in what socialists consider an "optimum, rational" way. Taxes do not give those running society this incredibly dangerous power.
When operating in a liberal society and thus contained by liberalism's rejection of compulsory duty to society, socialists certainly favor higher taxes. But that by no means suggests taxes bear any meaningful relationship to the nature of socialist duty.
To the socialist mindset and in socialist theory, taxes are the equivalent of taking aspirin when brain surgery is required—a palliative, not the cure.
The socialist cure is to leave liberalism behind and to create a society based on the duty of "from each according to their ability"—a society that controls our time and talents so that parasites can be suppressed, "useless" jobs made illegal, and so that our lives can be "used" in what socialists consider "an optimum, rational way." Without these steps, socialist theory says what Fidel Castro does: that "socialism cannot exist."
Again, taxes take place after we use our lives as we wish. Conversely, socialist duty gives those running society the power to control our lives before we use our brief time on Earth as we choose.
Fascism is another philosophy that rejects liberalism and calls for the imposition of compulsory duty—compulsory duty to "the community."
If someone argued that fascist duty was like paying taxes, we'd consider such a claim is ludicrous. Comparing socialist duty to the duty to pay taxes is every bit as absurd.
[14]. The fact that socialism treats the time in our lives as society's time is addressed at length in a number of RFP papers. See, for example, "Why Socialism Says Craftwork Is 'Idiocy,'" "Why Socialism Says Slacking Is Theft," and "A 'Defect' of Liberalism: Treating Your Life as Your Own."
[15]. Tawney, Acquisitive Society, 96. Emphasis original.
[16]. Tom Campbell, The Left and Rights: A Conceptual Analysis of the Idea of Socialist Rights (London: Routledge, 1983), 83. Kindle.
[17]. Campbell, Left and Rights, 83.
[18]. J. Ramsay MacDonald, Socialism and Government, vol. 1 (London: Independent Labour Party, 1909), 12.
[19]. Laurence Gronlund, The Cooperative Commonwealth: An Exposition of Modern Socialism (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1884), 83–84.
[20]. Edward Hallett Carr, Conditions of Peace (New York: MacMillan, 1942), 125.
[21]. "Devoir général soit placé au-dessus de la liberté́ personnelle. … Celui qui remplira ses devoirs jouira des droits de la liberté́." Rienzi [Henri von Kol], Socialisme et liberté (Paris: V. Girard & E. Bière, 1898), 36.
[22]. Ernest Belfort Bax, The Ethics of Socialism, Being Further Essays in Modern Socialist Criticism (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1893), 29.
[23]. Bernard Shaw, "October 27, 1927 Letter to Adler quoted in Margaret Cole," in The Story of Fabian Socialism (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), 197. Shaw wrote these words praising Mussolini five years after Mussolini had established his authoritarian fascist regime over Italy but before Mussolini's Italy joined Nazi Germany to lead the world into World War II.
[24]. Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), v.
[25]. Marx, "On the Jewish Question," 40, 41. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[26]. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, 3rd rev. ed. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 225. Marx, "On the Jewish Question."
[27]. Steve Steven Lukes, "Can a Marxist Believe in Human Rights?," PRAXIS International 4 (1981): 344.
[28]. Lukes, "Can a Marxist Believe in Human Rights?," 338.
[29]. Lacroix, Pranchère, and Raillard, "Was Karl Marx Truly against Human Rights?," 47.
[30]. Lacroix, Pranchère, and Raillard, "Was Karl Marx Truly against Human Rights?," 63.
[31]. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[32]. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[33]. Marx, "On the Jewish Question," 41.
[34]. Harrington, Twilight of Capitalism, v.
[35]. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[36]. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1921), 96.
[37]. "Heureusement que le dictateur élu par le peuple, le bon et courageux Icar, se trouve le meilleur des hommes!" Étienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 5th ed. (Paris: Au Bureau du Populaire, 1848), 39.
[38]. Harrington, Socialism, Past and Future, 304–5.
[39]. Tawney, Acquisitive Society, 96.
[40]. Eugene V. Debs, "The Socialist Party's Appeal," The Independent (New York), October 15, 1908, https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1908/appeal.htm.
[41]. George Allan England, quoted by Debs, "Socialist Party's Appeal."
[42]. Socialism is founded on the belief that the individual should be subservient to the community and that this subservience is the way to "true freedom" and "true individualism." Ernest Bax reports what he considers a positive attribute of socialism: "The New Ethic of Socialism, moreover, exhibits for the first time in the world's history the conscious sacrifice of the individual to the social whole" (Bax, Ethics of Socialism, 21). Similarly, see J. Ramsay MacDonald: "The individual is primarily a cell in the organism of his Society" (MacDonald, Socialism and Society, 32).
Fascism also sees the individual as subservient to "the community." Socialism may have been the first philosophy to call for the "conscious sacrifice of the individual" as Ernest Bax proclaims, but fascism was spurred on by this socialist stance. Adolph Hitler wrote: "True idealism is nothing but the subordination of the interests and life of the individual to the community" (Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim [Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1943], 299.)
Ernest Huber tells us the Nazi view: "The legal position of the individual is always related to the community and conditioned by duty. … It is developed not for the sake of the individual but for the community" (Ernest Rudolf Huber, "Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich" [1939], quoted in Raymond E. Murphy et. al., National Socialism, Basic Principles, Their Applications by Nazi Party's Foreign Organization, and the Use of Germans Abroad for Nazi Aims [Washington, DC: US Department of State, 1943], 50). In one Nazi party document, we see the same metaphor at work in fascism as in socialism—"society"/"the nation" as an organism and individuals as disposable cells: "The Nation … is an organism comprising an indefinite series of generations of which single individuals are but transient elements" (Program of the National Fascist Party 1921, accessed December 7, 2020, http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/program-of-national-fascist-party-1921.html).
Because both make the individual subservient to society, socialism and fascism are both anti-individualist. The "father of Fascism," Benito Mussolini, writes: "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual only in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical liberalism, which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interest of the particular individual; Fascism reasserts the State as the true reality of the individual" (Benito Mussolini, "The Doctrine of Fascism" [1932], Biloteca Fascista, March 1, 2012, http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/doctrine-of-fascism-1932.html). Che Guevara, meanwhile, provides the socialist view of individualism: "Individualism ought to be the efficient use of the whole individual for the absolute benefit of the collectivity" (Ernest "Che" Guevara, "On Revolutionary Medicine," in Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, ed. John Gerassi [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968], 115).
[43]. Socialist duty leads socialists to treat the time in our lives as society's time and to say that our work is not our individual property but rather should be considered the property of society. Fascism's foundation on duty leads it to the same view—that our time is effectively the community's time and our work not for ourselves but for the community.
As one example of the socialist view, Fidel Castro said, "Labor is not an individual tool with which to earn one's living but is rather the tool of the whole society, not the resources of an individual" (Fidel Castro, "Castro Anniversary Speech in Santa Clara [July 26, 1968]," Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services, accessed December 7, 2020, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1968/19680726.html). Adolph Hitler's words mirror those Castro spoke many years after him: "[The individual] no longer works directly for himself, but with his activity articulates himself with the community, not only for his own advantage, but for the advantage of all. The most wonderful elucidation of this attitude is provided by [the Aryan's] word 'work,' by which he does not mean an activity for maintaining life in itself, but exclusively a creative effort that does not conflict with the interests of the community" (Hitler, Mein Kampf, 297–98).
[44]. For details on socialism's multi-generation obsession with "parasites," including examples from over a hundred socialist thinkers over nine generations, see the RFP paper "The Socialist Obsession: The Central Role of 'Parasites' In Socialist Thought."
[45]. Benito Mussolini, "Speech delivered at Prato della Marfisia in Ferrara, 4th April 1921," in Mussolini as Revealed in His Political Speeches, trans. and ed. Bernardo Quaranta di San Severino (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1923), 77.
[46]. Mario Palmieri, The Philosophy of Fascism (Dante Alighieri Society, 1936). Benito Mussolini is referred to as "the father of Fascism" multiple times in this work, not only by Mr. Palmieri, but also by Dr. Guido Corni, who writes the preface and reports: "Mr. Palmieri's work is not only honored by the seal of the Dante organization, but also by the approval of the father of Fascism, the Duce himself, his Excellency Benito Mussolini."
[47]. Spencer M. Di Scala and Emilio Gentile, eds., Mussolini 1883–1915: Triumph and Transformation of a Revolutionary Socialist (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), preface, Kindle.
[48]. Pierluigi Allotti, "The Style of a Revolutionary Journalist," in Di Scala and Gentile, Mussolini; Stefano Biguzzi,"A Revolutionary in Trentino," in Di Scala and Gentile, Mussolini.
[49]. See Benito Mussolini, Utopia: Rivista Quindicinale del Socialismo Rivoluzionario (Milano: Feltrinelli Reprint, 1970).
[50]. See Benito Mussolini, Opera omnia di Benito Mussolini, ed. Edoardo Susmel, 36 vols. (Firenze: La Fenice, 1951), esp. vols. 2–7.
[51]. The advent of World War 1 lead to a split within the Italian Socialist Party, which had historically been pacifist (Mussolini himself had served six months in jail for leading an anti-war protest against the Italian invasion of Libya; see Spencer M. Di Scala, "The Battle Within: Benito Mussolini, the Reformists and the Great War," in Di Scala and Gentile, Mussolini.)
Mussolini represented a significant faction of Socialist Party members who felt that the circumstances of World War 1 demanded abandoning their traditionally anti-war policy. Other party leaders and members favored Italy remaining neutral. The debate split the party, and Mussolini was stripped of his party membership. Italy did end up fighting alongside France, Britain, and the US in the war.
Here's an excerpt from Mussolini's last speech to the Italian Socialist Party:
But you have not seen the last of me! Twelve years of my party life are, or ought to be, a sufficient guarantee of my faith in Socialism. Socialism is something which takes root in the heart. What divides me from you now is not a small dispute, but a great question over which the whole of Socialism is divided. … Do not think that in taking away my membership card you will be taking away my faith in the cause, or that you will prevent my still working for Socialism and revolution. It is the right and duty of the Italian people to liberate their political and spiritual life from the parasitic station of the past." (Benito Mussolini, "Do Not Think That by Taking Away My Membership Card You Will Take Away My Faith in the Cause," in Mussolini as Revealed in His Political Speeches: November 1914–August 1923, ed. and trans. Bernardo Quaranta [New York: E. F. Dutton, 1923], 5)
With the socialist pathway to power closed to him, Mussolini sought and found in fascism another route to helping the Italian people "liberate their political and spiritual life" from alleged parasites.
[52]. Louis Blanc and Étienne Cabet appear tied for the earliest use of the slogan "from each according to his ability." Both began to use it in the 1840s. See 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 ("Chacun produise selon son aptitude et ses forces, que chacun consomme selon ses besoins"); Étienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 5th ed. (Paris: Au Bureau du Populaire, 1848), cover ("Premier devoir: Travailler. De chacun suivant ses forces").
The quote "From each according to his ability. That is the DUTY" ("De chacun, selon ses facultés. Là est le DEVOIR") is from one of Blance's later works, La Historie de la Révolution de 1848, vol. 1 (Paris: C. Marpon, 1880), 148.
[53]. Benito Mussolini, "Decalogue of Benito Mussolini (1940)," Biblioteca Fascista, March 6, 2012, http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/decalogue-of-benito-mussolini-1940.html.
[54]. Palmieri, Philosophy of Fascism, 8.
[55]. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 337.
[56]. Gottfried Feder "The National Socialist Party and It's General Conceptions," trans. E. T. S. Dugdale, in Raymond E. Murphy et. al., National Socialism, 223. Feder was a high-ranking Nazi and a member of the Nazi party before even Hitler joined. While Hitler was in prison (where he wrote his infamous Mein Kampf), Feder was head of the Nazi party.
[57]. As the great socialist August Bebel explains, the first "Fundamental Law of Socialist Society" is the "Duty to Work of All Able-Bodied Persons." August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, trans. Meta L. Stern (New York: Socialist Literature Co., 1910), 370.
[58]. Ernest Rudolf Huber, "Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich (1939)," quoted in Murphy et. al., National Socialism, 50.
[59]. Ernest Rudolf Huber, "Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich" (1939) quoted in Murphy et. al., National Socialism, 50.
[60]. Marx, "On the Jewish Question," 41.
[61]. Benito Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions (New York: Howard Fertig, 1968), 13. Emphasis added.
[62]. Among the many socialist mass murders and genocides are the "killing fields" in Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) that cost over a million and likely as many as three million their lives; "The Holodomor," the Ukrainian genocide in which the USSR took over four million lives; and the People's Republic of China's "Great Leap Forward," estimated to have killed 20 million at the low end, though new research by Frank Dikötter puts the figure well above 40 million.
For background on the killing fields, see the Yale University Genocide Studies Program, Cambodian Genocide Program, https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/cambodian-genocide-program; Craig Etcheson, "'The Number'—Quantifying Crimes Against Humanity in Cambodia," Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 1999; Philip Short, Pol Pot, Anatomy of a Nightmare (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2004). On the Holodomor, see Anne Applebaum, Red Famine (New York: Knopf-Doubleday, 2017); Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985). On the Great Leap Forward, see Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, the History of China's Greatest Disaster, 1958–1962 (New York: Walker & Company, 2010); Xizhe Peng, "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces," Population and Development Review 13, no. 4 (December 1987), 639–70; Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang, "The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster," Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 4 (August 2005), 840–77.
[63]. Tawney, Acquisitive