Template:Primitive Communism
Primitive Communism
Some will suggest that "Primitive communism is a way of describing the gift economies of hunter-gatherers throughout history, where resources and property hunted and gathered are shared with all members of a group, in accordance with individual needs."
But the primitive societies may have been egalitarian but they were not communist societies because:
Communism is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs within an economic system in which the distribution of property and resources is primarily controlled by the government.
In the above statement several fallacies should be obvious if the mind of the reader is not already effected by jealous, envy, bitterness or ignorance.
When property is publicly owned rather than "privately owned" choices will be in the hands of the rulers of the collective. The power of choice will be centralized and the individual with less choice will become a person, a mere member.
"Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.”[1]
Agreement or conquest
Marxist ideas include the idea that Primitive Communism consisted of "the ancient communal and State ownership which proceeds especially from the union of several tribes into a city by agreement or by conquest."
Karl Marx wanted to build a city that was a caldron and you be the flesh. Like Cain, Nimrod, Pharaoh, and Caesar, Karl Marx wanted to build cities of blood[2] where the city is the caldron, and we be the flesh are spoken of by the prophets.[3] A theme repeated throughout the history of man from the bondage of Egypt to the Golden calf. From Nimrod's Babylon to Caesar's free bread of the Imperial Cult of Rome and Herod's and the Pharisees' Corban man has bound himself in systems that lead to tyranny through greed and wantonness.
Swelling vanity
"For when they speak great swelling [words] of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, [through much] wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known [it], to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog [is] turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." 2 Peter 2:18-22
Original societies
Original societies of man were centered in the family or an extended family called a clan which may have come together as tribes through mutual sharing of danger and resources. Those who willingly chose to share what they produced or gathered by an individual free choice created bonds which held society together based on the nobility of the heart, mutual trust and moral respect.
The compelled sharing by any political power or authoritarian hierarchies that exercise authority would give rise to tyranny if not abuse like we see in the true story of the Cains or Nimrods of the world.
There may have been a hierarchy within a free society but it was often based on honor and respect through the virtues of courage, unselfish sacrifice, and ability. When corporate society formed a political unit and established a legal system it was often based on Natural Law and the law of the Father.
There were other systems born out of those early tribes and offices of Priests and Patronus such as systems of One Purse. Within those systems rulers or a ruling class may call themselves benefactors but they only share with the people what they take from others through systems of legal charity.
Roman Montero wrote a book, "All things in common", suggesting that early Christians were communists because of his private interpretation of the "all things common" quote. Roman redefines communism as from each according to his ability and to each according to his need. That of course is not the definition of Communism because you must answer how the distribution is made.
Who has the authority to take from one and give to another which is the very function of charity. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 makes it clear that if you do not work you should not eat.
Communism is not a system of charity but a system of one purse which runs to evil and we are warned against.
The idea of "primitive communism" originated from the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They of course argued that hunter-gatherer societies were traditionally based on egalitarian social relations and common ownership. They used their faulty logic to promote the covetous ruler-ship of collectivism through the state which was one of the great disasters of our time.
Their ideas about Communism eventually produced some of the most bloodthirsty governments of the last millennium robbing and destroying some of the most productive members of society. Suggesting that "primitive communism" is the natural course of society is utter nonsense.
Define liberty
Communism hates liberty.
"Who may define liberty?
It is far more than independence of a nation. It is not a catalog of political ‘rights.'
Liberty is a thing of the spirit – to be free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, and to speak without fear – free to challenge wrong and oppression with surety of justice.
Liberty conceives that the mind and spirit of men can be free only if the individual is free to choose his own calling, to develop his talents, to win and keep a home sacred from intrusion, to rear children in ordered security. It holds he must be free to earn, to spend, to save, honestly to accumulate property that may give protection in old age and to loved ones..... It holds, both in principle and in world experience, that these intellectual and spiritual freedoms cannot thrive except where there are also these economic freedoms. It insists equally upon protections to all these freedoms, or there is no liberty." The Challenge to Liberty, by Herbert Hoover, pg. 2
Primitive Inuit
Among primitive Inuit you would commonly share any seal you caught in hope that if you did not catch a seal the next day others might share with you what they caught. You owned your knife, your spear, your bow, your mukluks and parka which might be the total of your wealth. And if you were a really good hunter people would make sure you got the lion share of food and even gift warmer mittens to you because you were more important than others.
This idea of "primitive communism" by Marx and Engels is fiction.
A sharing society and communism are not the same thing.
They would have been better to call those early sharing societies "primitive capitalism".
The hunter or gatherer accumulates food or resources because he owns his personal means of production, his labor. What he gathers is his. He may consume it, use it, store it or he may take it back to the camp or tribe where he then may choose to share with other hunter-gatherers in that he will win or earn their favor and appreciation to win favor and promote community.
This "primitive capitalism" was practiced by whole nations which had a system of voluntary redistribution of wealth through what was called altars.
The egalitarian society is one where all people deserve equal rights and opportunities not a right to what others produce, hunt or gather. A sharing society dependent upon charitable love for one another was the tradition of the early Church and Moses but John the Baptist and Jesus were specific that you should not force that sharing by an exercising authority over the other.
Yes, Justin the Martyr and Tertulian talked about sharing bread and the apostles rightly divided bread from house to house, but this was within a system of charity and choice. There was no Benefactors who exercised authority one over the other in the Christian community.
Jesus was not a socialist nor did the early Church practice communism. Communism is not a system of charity but a system of one purse which the Bible says runs to evil and we are warned against.
Montero and others who misinterpret the "all things common" quote incorrectly fail to understand the separation of the Church and state or people. Like the Levites of old, Moses and Jesus created a system of self-government where the ministers were separate and titular from the general population of the people. They could not exercise authority one over the other like the Benefactors of the world. While they owned all things in common they did not exercise authority one over the other. The people did not belong to the body of Levites but individually belonged to God[4] Himself or so is the intention of God. The ministers of the Church in the wilderness and the early Church owned all things in common [5] but the people were returned to their possessions and their families[6].
The same as the Church in the wilderness the early Church as a group of appointed ministers called out to minister to the Kingdom of God at hand was composed of men and women who belonged to God, were not of the "world" and were assigned to feed his sheep just as the Levites served the tents of the congregations by providing a Daily ministration through the Corban or sacrifice of the people given as Freewill offerings which the New Testament calls charity. They, the Church and its ordained ministers, held things as joint heirs of a society with a mission of charity as unhewn but lively Stones from which the living Altars of God may be built.
The sheep of Christ hear his voice and live by charity not by force, the appointed shepherds of Christ provide a network of charity and a daily ministration of righteousness according to The Way of Christ.
In fact you cannot be a Communist nor even a socialist and a Christian at the same time. If we are going to define a Christian as someone who believes Jesus and wants to do what he said. Socialism relies upon men who call themselves Benefactors but exercise authority one over the other.
Montero does see the Church and the Christian community as a system of self-supporting charity where people provided and cared for one another but those who think the Christians were communists or even socialist are misled in their final conclusion because they do not understand the nature of the relationship of the appointed Church and the people they were meant to serve and the Kingdom of God and how it works and does not work.
Jesus was not a socialist. We were to take care of one another but only by freewill offerings motivated out of a loving heart and not a covetous one.
- ↑ Archibald MacLeish
- ↑ Ezekiel 7:23 Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
- Ezekiel 9:9 Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah [is] exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD seeth not.
- Ezekiel 22:2 Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations.
- Ezekiel 22:3 Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.
- Ezekiel 24:6 Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum [is] therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.
- Ezekiel 24:9 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.
- Hosea 6:8 Gilead [is] a city of them that work iniquity, [and is] polluted with blood.
- ↑ Ezekiel 9:9, Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 22:3, Habakkuk 2:12, Jeremiah 22:13, Micah 3, Hosea 6:8. It is the cities of Cain, and Nimrod, Pharaoh's Egypt or Caesar's Rome but also FDR's New Deal and LBJ's [New_Deal#Great_Society|Great Society]] where the people have one purse, bite one another to obtain free benefits, and love the wages of unrighteousness. It is the Welfare State where Legal charity has replaced the love of Christ and the modern Churches of the world tickle the ears of the people.
- ↑ Numbers 3:12 And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn that openeth the matrix among the children of Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine;
- Numbers 3:45 Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle; and the Levites shall be mine: I am the LORD.
- Numbers 8:14 Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel: and the Levites shall be mine.
- ↑ Acts 2:44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common; Acts 4:32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
- ↑ Leviticus 25:10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
- Leviticus 25:41 And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return.