COMMUNISM - SET OF PRINCIPLES

“Capitalism is Part of Neolithic Culture”

What is the communist idea?

hierarchy (re onsibility) ecial ation (e ciency) authority (command) professionalization (expert e-merit) procedures (cont uity)

Rationalization

The “distinction between principles and rules ... is real and important. Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to prescription. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things. Rules seek to tell an agent just what course of action to pursue ... A principle, such as that of justice, supplies a main head by reference to which he is to consider the bearings of his desires and purposes, it guides him in his thinking by suggesting to him the important consideration which he should bear in mind. (Ambedkar 1936)

- “It is worth remembering that the doctrine, practice and thought of capitalism, in its current form, is liberalism. Today we are so keen to ... believe that what is called 'neoliberalism' is different from the out-and-out liberalism of the nineteenth century. But its doctrines, its proposals, its ways of doing things, its enemies, etc., in no way differ from those of the liberal doctrine formulated and deployed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.” (Badiou 2018, Greece and the Reinvention of Politics )

- “the established order has thus far always been inegalitarian, and that that’s what’s called the Neolithic Age. We don’t know much about what came before it. There were little groups of hunters. But the so-called “Neolithic Revolution,” for the first time, formed societies based on inequality ... In all societies, for the past four thousand years, a ruling group, ruling unequally, on the basis on how much private property it owned, ran society, protected itself with a proper state apparatus, competed with other groups of the same type, and so on. We’re still completely stuck in this situation.” (Badiou 2019, In Praise of Politics )