amateur hour in politics 101

Gerry opens amateur hour in politics 101... by banning "Leftie Fundamentalists" (among others) from commenting. It's his blog - he can set the rules. So I am commenting in my own blog.

For a political discussion to progress, we need some definitions. Here are mine:

Communism

The production is controlled by the people. There is no separation between owners and workers. The workers own the factories, businesses, and farms, and the owners work in the factories and businesses or on the farms.

Capitalism

The capitalist owns the factories, businesses, and farms. They employ people to work for them to produce things and services. There is a class between the owners and the workers: the petite bourgeois (small businesses). They own the business and they work for themselves.

Socialism

The state controls the production. The state owns the factories, businesses, and farms. The question is who then controls the state. In Marxist terms, Socialism is a transitional stage between Capitalism and Communism.

Strictly speaking, a Communist society has not yet existed. There have only been Socialist ones of various constructions. That is, the USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, etc. were all Socialist countries.

In Australia, there are socialist enterprises such as Telstra, Australia Post, Sydney Water, CityRail, Integral Energy, Energex, ABC, etc. Since these enterprises do not comprise the majority of the economic activity (choose a measure here) within the Australian economy, then Australia is not a Socialist economy. Even if the majority of economic activity was controlled by the State, then the problem of who controls the State comes into play. That is, if a minority of the people manage to control the State, they will control the economy. A description of a Socialist state needs to include who controls the State.

Back to Gerry's post. The main thrust of which appears to be that the atheism of the Socialist State forces religious groups to cling to Capitalism. If he were writing at the time of the French Revolution, he would decry that the new Capitalism was forcing religious groups to cling to Capitalism.

Religion is not a monolith. There are various groupings within an organised religion. Like any organisation, those in power cling to power in any way they can. Under Feudalism, the Catholic Church justified the economic system by tying people to their lord's land. Under Constantine and later emperors, the Church justified the imperial system of slavery. Now under Capitalism, the Protestant Churches are justifing the economic system.

Organised religion is part of the subjective superstructure that keeps people inside the system. (Other parts are the universities, mass media, and now, the blogosphere.) The idea is keep people thinking that the choice is between A and B whereas options, C, D, and E, exist but are not to be seriously considered. By controlling the choices that are put to the people, the ruling class controls the people. This is why anything that threatens the system (like Pauline Hanson, S11, anti-war, anti-globalisation, Greenies, etc.) is stamped on or co-opted into the system.

The range of choices must be constrained and, yet at the same time, the differences between those choices must be magnified into a war of the worlds. Into this, the organised religions are drawn by financial incentives (reduced rates and taxes, donations to charities, funds for restoration of buildings, support for schools), political incentives (State Funerals, attendance by the political and business elite at important functions), intellectual incentives (educational institutions, their own mass media, access to the secular mass media), etc. These are a lot of incentives to play the game. Since the organised religions have assets to protect, they act to protect those assets against the claims by others.

The most radical preachers I have encountered are those who are just starting out in their ministry. They are all fired up after reading James, Amos, Jeremiah, Hosea, the Gospels, etc. They have no assets so their freedom of speech is very great. Then along comes some rich dude and gives them some money to help the poor. They do so and lives are made better. The preacher notices that the rich dude gets uncomfortable when the sermon is from those radical sections of the Bible, so the preacher modifies the teaching to take account of the less radical parts. More rich dudes appear and the teaching is further softened so that money can come in to help the poor.

The preacher was put into an invidious position of having to choose between preaching the full Gospel or helping the poor. As more and more compromises are made, they may find themselves as an organised church with outreach services but a far softer message than they started with.

There is not a conspiracy to subvert organised religion. There is a sequence of decisions that ordinary human beings go through to arrive at that position in a Capitalist society.

In summary, organised religions are drawn into a reactionary ideological position because of the assets that they have accumulated. The last thing any Capitalist wants is for the Catholic Church and others to divest themselves of their assets. The message of Christainity is too radical for Capitalism.