RichardKennaway comments on Open thread, January 25- February 1 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: NancyLebovitz 25 January 2014 02:52PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 27 January 2014 08:11:10PM *  4 points [-]

There is a quote commonly mis-attributed to August Bebel and indeed to Marx: "Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus des dummen Kerls." ("Antisemitism is the socialism of the stupid guy", or perhaps colloquially, "Antisemitism is a dumb-ass version of socialism") That is to say, politically naïve people were attracted to antisemitism because it offered them someone to blame for the problems they faced under capitalism, which — to the quoted speaker's view, anyway — would be better remedied by changing the political-economic structure.

Does that make socialism the anti-semitism of the smart? Or perhaps of the ambitious -- they're attracted to it because it gives them an enemy big enough to justify taking over everything?