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The Forum > General Discussion > Were the Apostles actually 'communists'?

Were the Apostles actually 'communists'?

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Waterboy:

Regarding Ananias and Sapphira falling dead after holding back thier possessions - if you believe God did it, then I am not one to argue with Him. If you don't believe in God then they just died of natural causes. Either way, the apostles didn't force them to be apart of the communal system. This is more than can be said of many citizens in communist or socialist societies regarding wealth distribution.
Posted by StewartGlass, Thursday, 15 March 2007 11:24:06 PM
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Dear Tao
I want to address one point in your last post.

You say capitalism requires a working class to 'exploit'. And that not everyone wants to be an employer..

On the first point, I disagree and agree. Its all about ethics.
"utilize" is a more friendly term when it comes to employing people.
It does not have to be an 'unfair' or unust economic relationship.

Any employer who thinks they can get away with unfair or unjust or miserly wages to their workers, will have the following outcomes.

1/ Quality of work and committment will be virtually negative.
2/ His business will therefore suffer and go down the toilet.

It is always in the interests of an employer to pay workers as much as the business can sustain. Happy workers are productive ones.
This goes for the employER as well as the employEE.
No one wants to committ all their superannuation, inheritance (if they have one) mortgate their home (again) and savings into an enterprise which has little return.

So, the checks and balances in the employer/ee relationship are that it has to work for all sides. How you get 'exploitation' out of this I don't know. YES.. there are employers who think they can 'have it all'.. pay as little as possible and get a BIG return in their business, but that type usually come unstuck sooner if not later.

Also, employees have CHOICE...they can take a walk to the next exployer who offers a better deal.

RHIAN.. great post :) love the scripture refs.
Waterboy and Stewart..ditto.. well said.

Now we just need to take Tao off for some remedial counselling :)
woops..hang on.. in his world its 'Re-Education Camps and hard labor' :) Tao.. I'm teasing old son.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Friday, 16 March 2007 5:39:37 AM
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Stew,

The story of Ananias and Sapphira would be pretty pointless if they just died of natural causes. It would also be a remarkable coincidence of both timing and circumstances if it happened just as described had they died of natural causes. The point is that they died BECUASE they failed to give all their possessions. It is a sign to others and carries a certain ring of compulsion if you ask me.

As the story is told, we are meant to come to the conclusion that their deaths were some sort of Divine intervention. What matters is NOT the historical veracity of the episode but the narrative and its theological purpose. It is a sign to the reader to understand the nature of God and the relationship between God and the community of Christians. It is an ugly, unpleasant story and one that is clearly abhorrent to our modern, western sensitivities. But there it is... part of the Christian tradition. Judge for yourself whether it is valid to draw any parallels to Stalin's Russia. Personally I dont because I regard this as literature and not history.
Posted by waterboy, Friday, 16 March 2007 8:19:16 AM
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BOAZ,

“You-say-capitalism-requires-a-working-class-to-'exploit'.-And-that-not-everyone-wants-to-be-an-employer..-

On-the-first-point,-I-disagree-and-agree.-Its-all-about-ethics.
"utilize"-is-a-more-friendly-term-when-it-comes-to-employing-people.
It-does-not-have-to-be-an-'unfair'-or-unust-economic-relationship.”

You can ‘utilize’ as many ‘friendly’ terms as you like to make you ‘feel’ better about things, but it doesn’t change the essential nature of the employer/employee relationship.

The definition of exploit is to take advantage of a person or situation unfairly or unethically for one’s own ends – look it up in the dictionary. That is what employers do.

In the final analysis, the only reason millions of people all over the world go to work for others is because they have no other way to obtain the resources on which they and their families can SURVIVE. Capitalist employers own the means by which humanity produces those resources – the tools, and they will not give the products away without ‘profiting’ from them.

What it means is that millions of people all over the world go to work every day and produce goods with their labour. But those goods don’t belong to the people who produce them, they belong to the owner of the tools, or the employer, who ‘utilizes’ workers to ‘utilize’ the tools. The employer then sells the goods produced by the workers back to the workers for a higher price than he paid to the workers to produce the goods - profit.

So the relatively few employers, who as a class own the means by which humanity produces its sustenance, take advantage of the fact that there are millions of people who can’t get what they need to survive unless they sell their labour because as a class they don’t own the tools to ‘utilize’ for their own sustenance. Employers take advantage of what is in reality a life or death situation for workers for their own profitable ends.

So as an individual employee, sure I can “walk to the next employer who offers a better deal” and I have done so, but it doesn’t change my relationship to the means of production, or the nature of my relationship to my employers, regardless of how well they treat me while ‘utilizing’ me in their ‘enlightened’ self-interest – it is still exploitation.
Posted by tao, Friday, 16 March 2007 7:29:57 PM
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/waits for Boaz to respond with a quote from the Bible.
/waits for tao to parrot Marx.
/waits for an original idea.
/waits for the two to go around in an endless circle based on nothing resembling reality.
Posted by shorbe, Friday, 16 March 2007 9:14:34 PM
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Well Shorbe,

Unfortunately we can't be all as cynical, all-knowing, all-dismissing, and all-hating as a Nietzschian like you.

No need to stick around if you don't like it. I believe syphilus, or something as equally unpleasant, was Nietzsche's end. An unedifying and humanity-hating life, madness, then death.
Posted by tao, Friday, 16 March 2007 10:05:42 PM
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