Collectivistic Thought Throughout Time

Legalism (280 – 233 BCE). Chinese thinkers such as Shang Yang (390-338 BCE), Shen Dao (c. 350-275 BCE), and Shen Buhai (died 337 BCE) advocated a much more authoritian approach to government, which became known as Legalism. The only way that people could be controlled, the Legalists argued, was by a system that emphasized the well-being of the state over the rights of the individual, with strict laws to punish undesirable behavior.

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872):

• The pursuit of individual rights is insufficient for the social good…
• …because not everyone is able to exercise their rights.
• …because the pursuit of individual interests leads to greed and conflict.
• Individual rights should be subsumed under the duty to one’s country.
• Therefore, say not I, but we.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865):  Property is theft.

Karl Marx (1818-1883):

• Capitalism and private property make labor into a commodity.
• This alienates workers from what they produce, from their work, from their human identity, and from their fellow humans.
• Communism abolishes private property and brings the end of alienation.
• Thus, communism is the riddle of history solved.

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932):

• Socialists  expected capitalism to produce poverty.
• Yet capitalism has increased the wealth of workers.
• Capitalism has proved to be a stable secure system.
• This means that workers accept capitalism.
• We have to take working men as they are.
• Therefore, socialists should argue for piecemeal reforms under capitalism.

Beatrice Webb (1858-1943): Argued for a welfare state that would provide protection against unemployment and illness. She and her husband argued that social problems could be solved by benevolent planners, administering society in the best interests of all.

Rosa Luxemberg (1871-1919):

• Inequality and oppression exist in a capitalist society.
• The oppressed workers do not need external leaders…
• …since they will rise up spontaneously to throw off their oppressors.
• Thus, the mass strike results from social conditions with historical inevitability.

Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944):

• The law and the will of the nation take precedence over individual will.
• All human and spiritual values lie within the state.
• All individual action serves to preserve and expand the state.
• Thus, the fascists conception of the state is all-embracing.

Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953):

• The wealthy farmers are an exploitative class.
• They control others because they control food production.
• They resist collectivization.
• They are the carriers of capitalism.
• Therefore, the wealthy farmers must be deprived of the sources of their existence.

Mao Zedong (1893-1976):

• China is an agrarian rather than an industrial society.
• Therefore peasants are China’s proletariat class.
• Peasants have no power against armed capitalist exploiters.
• In order to get rid of the gun, it is necessary to take up the gun.
• Thus, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Source: The Politics Book.

Eduard Bernstein thoughts are interesting. First, he acknowledges that capitalism is stable and actually does help workers. Then later on he says capitalism should be gradually changed. Well, if it is stable and beneficial why change it at all? Answer: socialism = religion or if you prefer socialism = dogma. It doesn’t matter if socialism works or not—it is a matter of belief.

Joseph Stalin’s attitude toward the wealthy farmers is not much different than Hitler’s attitude toward the Jews who he considered wealthy and who he thought were controlling the economy. Both scapegoated groups died in the end.