I’ve heard it many times from liberals who either mean the revolution would be more violent than our current system (it wouldn’t be), or suggesting that communists claim that we will achieve utopia if we’re just allowed to commit much brutality in the mean time (obviously false). This phrase annoys me so much, not just as a utilitarian, but also as someone who understands the meaning of words, as they are either suggesting that (in the moralistic sense) literally nothing is worth doing, ever, or that morality shouldn’t matter because everything is immoral anyway.

  • Marxism-Fennekinism
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    fedilink
    341 year ago

    the revolution would be more violent than our current system (it wouldn’t be)

    Remember the rule of thumb:

    Killing a fifty year old aristocrat who could have lived to eighty had you not actively killed them is a killing.

    Shortening a factory worker’s life by thirty years so they die at fifty, through poverty, resource insecurity/low quality resources like cheap unhealthy food, and chronic stress and overwork, all leading to much higher risk of deadly illnesses like heart disease and cancer is an “inevetable consequence of free society!”

    Hanging a millionaire landlord and snapping their neck in one second is a killing.

    Letting a homeless person wither away over ten years until he dies is “he should have managed his finances better!”

    Shooting an investment shark who owns a private hospital in the brain is a killing.

    Denying a patient brain cancer treatment because they can’t afford it is “oh well, we can’t save everyone!”

    • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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      221 year ago

      Shortening a factory worker’s life by thirty years so they die at fifty

      Obligatory reminder that in the half XIX century workers in England lived in such horrible conditions that in one city (Machester or Liverpool iirc) average lifespan (icluding infant mortality etc.) for member of worker family was… 15 years, and this was taken from official statistic.

      Fifteen.

      • @redtea
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        131 year ago

        Another connoisseur of The Condition of the Working Class in England, I see.

        I cannot remember which city was which, either. But I remember that in the other city, the average lifespan was 17 or 19. So not much better!

    • There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

      – some obscure Amerikan author, idk

    • @LVL
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      141 year ago

      Reminds me of this quote from Engels on the topic of social murder.

      When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.

      • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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        91 year ago

        “Baaaaaaah, you are free to find better job prole, learn to code or something” - average liberal

  • commiespammer
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    271 year ago

    Let’s put it this way. If killing 5 people means world peace, those 5 people probably need to be dead for a reason.

    • @BenEarlDaMarxist
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      151 year ago

      Yeah, if the ends are reasonable (just wanting many normal people to not get kicked to the curb and die on the street just cuz the corpos need more money) and the means are logical (rational murder of the people on top that perpetuate this shit & maybe also to whatever lackeys they send at you while just being neutral to neutral parties), then sometimes the ends do justify the means.

  • SovereignState
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    231 year ago

    If like 10,000 people would have to redacted to save the entire planet and literally billions of people, then yeah, the ends would justify the means.

    10,000 is probably a stretch with how much power is consolidating into fewer and fewer hands.

    • @ComradeSalad
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      201 year ago

      10,000 are the “head”. In the example of Imperial Russia they would be the Czar, the political leaders, the capitalist leaders of corporations, the generals and officers of the White Stavka, and all of their mid level lackeys.

      The danger comes not from those people directly, but from the millions that followed their every word blindly. Willing to die and throw themselves into the fire against the Red proletariat revolution, despite they themselves being of the proletariat class.

      That is the problem that the modern revolution will face. As on their own, the billionaires, presidents, and CEOs will be of little threat, however the same cannot be said for the countless millions that will follow them into the fire of a dying capitalist system.

      • SovereignState
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        1 year ago

        True enough. Though I’d certainly still argue that dealing with the rest of the snake via any means necessary would still be justified.

        • @ComradeSalad
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          151 year ago

          Absolutely, however it is there where the most care must be taken. A vast majority of the “body” can be rehabilitated, re-educated, and reintegrated, and any communist movement must try their best not to alienate the proletariat, even those that may have taken up arms against it in the past (Within reason of course). For example how the Chinese dealt with the Nationalist sympathizing south, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Reeducation and reintegration can be successful and must be attempted before harsher measures such as repression or crackdown.

          So while all means may be justified, harsh measures with no real aim may backfire significantly.

          • SovereignState
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            121 year ago

            For sure, the “necessary” in “any means necessary” is doing a lot of heavy lifting I think.

    • @lil_tank
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      1 year ago

      The problem isn’t those 10000 it’s the ones who they will persuade to fight for them directly or indirectly… which is basically all the imperial core citizens at this point (not counting second-class citizens obviously)

  • Anna ☭🏳️‍⚧️
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    211 year ago

    ‘the ends never justify the means’, we would’ve never had capitalism. The bourgeoisie had a revolution in France. It was also particularly violent. Does that mean that the means for equality, liberty and fraternity do not justify the liberation of the bourgeoisie?

  • ☭CommieWolf☆
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    201 year ago

    This stuff is hammered into liberals at every level of society, the recent Black Panther Marvel film was pretty much just propaganda that completely revolved around the concept of “We cannot kill even a single person even if killing saves the lives of millions of people.”.

    MLK said it best, that the white moderate is more devoted to “order” than to justice; prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;”

  • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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    141 year ago

    It’s just a meaningless idealist liberal phrase used to make people abandon any action and accept status quo. Dialectical materialist always needs to first answer two questions:

    What ends?

    What means?

  • JoeMarx 193
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    101 year ago

    Tell them this: “We tried voting, no matter how many times we did, we failed miserably.”

  • @Kirbywithwhip1987
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    1 year ago

    ‘‘Something something we will not apologize for our terror’’

  • @HaSch
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    41 year ago

    The means never justify the ends, either