For the article below, we have taken the liberty of adopting the writing of the grouping “Maoism For The Masses“, although we disagree with a lot of their points further expressed on their website.
But we would still like to share the article below.
Human nature, fundamental dispositions and traits of humans.
Theories about the nature of humankind form a part of every culture. In the West, one traditional question centred on whether humans are naturally selfish and competitive (see Thomas Hobbes; John Locke) or social and altruistic (see Karl Marx; Émile Durkheim). A broader problem is that of determining which ostensibly fundamental human dispositions and traits are natural and which are the result of some form of learning or socialization. {Encyc. Britannica}
- The basic principle of human existence is survival.
- Actions that support survival are good and yield pleasure
- Survival is the pin on which you could hang the rest of this with adequate and ample proof…[and] that life, all life, is trying to survive. {L. Ron Hubbard, American novelist and founder of the Church of Scientology.}
About Human Nature
Perhaps the most used argument against communism is that such a system would go against human nature. However, just as all defenses of capitalism do, it lacks both theoretical and practical coherency.

Firstly, the entire conception of there being a universal “human nature” is metaphysics, which has been proven wrong.
According to the scientific theory of evolution, humans evolve according to their material needs (more specifically their ability to reproduce). It’s human nature to kill your rapist, though it isn’t normal human nature to kill your own spouse. That’s because most of the time we depend on our spouses for survival while being raped is a direct threat to our survival. Likewise, it’s human nature to steal food when you have none, but few if any billionaires are caught robbing liquor stores. Through this, we can conclude that there isn’t a single “human nature” that prevents the realization of a fairer society.
Quite to the contrary human nature has evolved under a communal system for the vast majority of history.
The highly developed sense of equality in hunter-gatherer society meant that each person was equally entitled to food, regardless of his or her ability to find or capture it; so food was shared. It meant that nobody had more wealth than anyone else; so all material goods were shared. It meant that nobody had the right to tell others what to do; so each person made his or her own decisions. It meant that even parents didn’t have the right to order their children around; hence there were non-directive childrearing methods. It meant that group decisions had to be made by consensus; hence no boss, “big man,” or chief.
People used to depend on each other for food, clothing, shelter, and other basic survival needs. The genes that create who we are have gone through the vast majority of their evolution during that time. If there are any biological qualities commonly shared by humanity as a whole, they must have come from a time when exploitation didn’t exist. As such, that would mean that humans are in fact more inclined to pursue a communist society.
For the limited validity that this argument has, it has helped communists to stop believing in utopias. We have learned over the development of Marxism that because of human nature, we can’t trust the ruling class to put our interests first. Our study of human nature, and the concrete conditions of the world more broadly, is the basis for the general line of any socialist party. Jordan Peterson is 100% right that an unscientific approach to struggle and society is not going to get us anywhere, and that’s why Marxism is scientific both in theory and in practice.
Marx said that philosophy, which includes the study of human nature, is meaningless without a practical application. Jordan Peterson seems to recognize this too in his critique of critique of The Communist Manifesto. In the latter part of this argument, he connects his fringe theories on human nature to economics and society.
It’s actually not nearly a pessimistic enough description of the actual problem. The idea that the driving force of history is a hierarchical struggle is absolutely true. But it goes deeper than history, it’s biology itself, because organisms of all sorts organize themselves into hierarchies.
He is correct that hierarchies are actually an efficient way of distributing resources and developing productive forces. If it weren’t for the existence of slave labor, neither the Pyramids nor the Coliseum nor the Great Wall of China would have been built. Without feudalism we Europe wouldn’t have had a single castle. While the class structures imposed on these societies may not have been desirable per se, they were in a sense necessary for society to keep progressing.
But Marxist theory also explains that productive relations correspond with productive forces. It is metaphysics to think that a certain set of hierarchical structures, is to carry on forever. Every one of these social systems has its internal contradictions that are slowly but surely tearing it apart. Denial of this universal truth is nothing but metaphysics. With all the problems it creates throughout the world, capitalism isn’t anymore in the best interest of humanity. Adhering to the principles of historical materialism, we know that society will one day be able to achieve full communism. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism isn’t fundamentally opposed to belief in human nature, but rather it works within human nature to transform our world into a better one.
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Preceding
- Messages leading to an earthly utopia
- Living in this world and viewing it
- Random Thoughts 3/15/2022 by Ray Barbier and Marcus Ampe
- How willing are people to stand up for their values and beliefs
- All that is solid still melts into air.
- Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?
- God does not change – Human nature changes
- Putin’s Handy use of the Russian Orthodox Church
- After 2,000 UK Church Buildings Close, New Church Plants Get Creative
- A Living Faith #4 Effort
- A Living Faith #7 Prayer
- Credo of the Christadelphian
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Additional reading
- Human Nature: What does the Bible teach? (Our World)
- Can We Pay The Price To Free Humanity?
- The importance of utopia and how to get there
- Doctrine and Conduct Cause and Effect
- 19th and 20th Century Shifts in bourgeoisie
- On this day in history: Leon Trotsky was mortally wounded
- Leipzig Missionswerk and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia #4 New possibilities opening when Soviet state proclaimed freedom of religion and atheism
- Economics and Degradation
- Re-Creating Community
- Crises of Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic Money
- A charter for a truly free world and why we need it
- 2020 Talking Points – Stuck with polemics, histrionics, and ad hominem denunciation
- Tony Judt on twentieth-century Marxism
- The New Imperialist Structure
- God does not change
- Doest thou well to be Angry?
- How to make sustainable, green habits second nature – Good intentions are great, but wanting to do the right thing isn’t enough.
- About a fleshless diet
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Related
- Who are We?
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- Accepting the realities of human nature: why tradition is the answer
- The Meaning of Life
- What Real Intelligence Is Not
- I Paint Utopias
- Exploited, Excluded, and Expelled: How relevant is Marx’s theory of exploitation for understanding inequalities in the modern world?
- “Value, Price, and Profit” by Karl Marx
- Exploring Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto
- Beast in the town
- The voice of Time & Happiness
- Are we totally filled with Waste??
- Thinking Critically about Marxism, Socialism and Communism (All in fewer than 1000 words!)
- This Is What the End of Empire Looks Like: The Role of the New Economy
- Critical Thinking: Mixed Economies Are All We Have
- The Devilish Dictionary: M
- For Discussion: The Clearest Explanation of Marxism and Surplus Value I’ve Come Across
- Economic Systems: Notes on My Conversation with My 13 year-old Granddaughter
- Sunday Homily: Richard Dawkins’ 14 Commandments Can Save Our World
- Sunday Homily: God’s Commandments as the Road to World Peace
- Bringing a Debate to a Knife Fight
- ‘The Three Sources and Three Constituent Parts of Marxism’ by V.I. Lenin from The Militant. March 18, 1933.
- Shifts in the world order
- #Critical #Race Theory and #Marxism
- The Commissars of Charlottesville
- The Seven Deadly Sins of the American Evangelical Church
- Socialism
- Capitalism’s World Economic, Political and Social Crises and the Road to Fight Back
- What I learned campaigning as the working class socialist candidate for Oakland mayor
- Iran Israel: Same Shit, Different Place, Phony War
- Marx’s Theory on Alienated Labor and How the Story of the “Flight Attendant” Helps Explain it
- Joseph Ryan, Revolutionary Socialist, 1944-2022
- Democratic Socialists of America and the Political Crisis of Socialism
- Why Socialists Should Understand the Trump Crisis
- Trump and Putin: What they have in common; where they differ
- The Putinist Left, its monstrosities and the Ukrainian national question
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