Socrates Meets Marx by Peter Kreeft

Author:Peter Kreeft [Kreeft, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898709704
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-02-25T06:00:00+00:00

10

Private Property

MARX: Socrates, is it really your purpose to examine my book fairly?

SOCRATES: Indeed it is.

MARX: Then you ought to follow its topics and order more carefully rather than continually going off onto your philosophical, idealistic tangents about free will and mind and self.

SOCRATES: They are not tangents, nor are they particularly mine. I do not compel the argument to follow me, but I do compel myself to follow the argument. But you are right in saying that we must be more conscientious in following the topics and the order of your book. So let us look at the relation between chapter 1 and chapter 2. Chapter 1, “Bourgeois and Proletarians”, is about the past and about the problem. Chapter 2, “Proletarians and Communists”, is about the future and about the solution. Is that a fair outline?

MARX: It is short but accurate. And in chapter 2 I demolish every objection to Communism. So you as a philosopher should like this chapter, since you like arguments.

SOCRATES: I like arguments only as I like maps: they are means to an end. The end is the finding of truth.

Nevertheless, I am happy that you who do not share my end will at least share my means, argument.

MARX: Why do you say I do not share your end?

SOCRATES: You yourself say it. You explicitly say that the end of Communism is power, not truth: “The immediate aim of the Communists is . . . formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.”

MARX: But of course our aim is power: we Communists are doing politics, not philosophy. Politics is about power. What else could it be?

SOCRATES: Here is what else it could be. Politics could be about justice, about true justice. Might could be put into the hands of right instead of right being determined by might. That is the classical alternative to your system.

MARX: Oh, you mean the idealistic philosophy made famous by your disciple Plato in his Republic, the illusion Machiavelli refuted once and for all.

SOCRATES: Did he, now? Some time I must tell you about the conversation I had here with him. But in any case you do use arguments in this chapter, and I am happy to examine them.

MARX: Please do. You spend as much time saying what you’re going to do as doing it. I knew you philosophers preferred thinking to acting; I didn’t realize there was something you preferred even to thinking.

SOCRATES: What is that?

MARX: Thinking about thinking.

SOCRATES: Touché. Congratulations, Karl, you are beginning to develop a sense of humor. The air in this country does wonderful things to the mind.

MARX: Can we get down to business, please?

SOCRATES: Touché again. Well, in this chapter you attempt to answer, not quite “every” objection to Communism, as you said a moment ago, but the nine that are probably the most serious and common. And all of the objections are put in the same form: the objector claims that Communism is

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