@ big jake
socialists and the people the socialists defend and stand for should not be characterized as the same regarding their intent. we tend to identify the lowly and downtrodden as the symbol of socialist theory… so that when we hear them cry ‘i’m a victim’, we associate the theory of socialism with that indignation; we say ‘ah, this theory must be based in ressentiment, for look at all the miserable complainers who envy the wealthy.’ but there is a subtle non sequitur hidden behind such reasoning, one which the socialist theorist (if he knows his shit) does not come under the jurisdiction of. and it goes like this: the working class cannot envy the bourgeois unless there is something about the bourgeois that the working class is not responsible for creating. perhaps a personality trait, or a talent, for example. but the bourgeois did not create his wealth… he merely appropriated it, took it into his possession under the permission of a specific kind of civil contract which put laws in place to protect such appropriation and property. very technically speaking, the socialist can’t envy the bourgeois on that account because the object of envy already belongs to the socialist. what you call ‘envy’ is really an intent to repossess what has always belonged to the workers in the first place.
on the other hand, if what he envies is the capitalist’s ability to own without producing, he wouldn’t be a real socialist, but a farce - which accounts for much of the rabble; the fair weather socialists who would not hesitate to exploit themselves if given the opportunity. such people are not socialists and know nothing of the logic of socialist reasoning. the purpose is not to quench a thirst for revenge, but to modify that specific kind of socio-economic contract that protects the capitalist’s right to appropriate without producing anything. it’s an incredibly simple premise which conservatives endlessly conflate and obfuscate to over-complicate the matter and introduce multifarious elements into socialism’s modus operandi. one such maneuver would be to say socialism is based in envy. of course, there is the anarchist and socialist rabble who declare themselves ‘victims’ with what N called that righteous indignation, but this conclusion is assuming them all to be moralists. there are some not ignoble or impressed enough to be able to experience envy. immoralists and healthy narcissists, free from all those petty, plebian sentiments that are so human all too human. think spock, che guevara and loki rolled into one.
and i am one such anarchist, sometimes known as bodacious in various anarchist and socialist circles. a renegade philosopher anarchist who prefers the dialectic of a 12 gauge to a well crafted argument, any day. as the good chairman once said but didn’t quite say; power doesn’t come out of the barrel of a philosophy book.
but nevermind that. just remember this subtle detail; one can’t be envied when what they have is not theirs or of their own creation in the first place.
no. socialism cannot be reduced to such trivial mincing and squabbling.