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ChristianKl comments on Rationality Quotes June 2014 - Less Wrong
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Most people don't reject violent revolution for the practical reason that it's a unworkable strategy but because they find the idea of going and lynching the capitalists is morally wrong.
Marx idea of putting philosophy into action brought along the politics of revolution.Bush's relationship with the "reality-based community" leads to misleading voters and ignoring scientific findings. In both cases the ideas get judged by their practical political consequences.
No need to lynch anyone: after all, Marx didn't feel that capitalists were evil, he felt that they were just doing what the prevailing economic system forced them to do: to squeeze profit out of workers to avoid being outcompeted and driven to bankruptcy by the other capitalists. But (most of them) are not actively evil and don't need to be punished. So you could just let them live but take their stuff, and there does exist wide support for the notion of forcibly taking at least some of people's stuff (via taxation).
Marx didn't think that you can simply get a democratic majority and tax rich peoples wealth away via taxation. He considered that no viable political strategy but advocated revolution. You ignore the political actions that Marx advocated. In dialectics a thesis needs a contrasting antithesis to allow for synthesis.
Stalin also didn't kill people because they were evil. That's besides the point. The action that resulted in dead people were justified because they move history along.
The earlier question was about whether Marx would be in people's Overton window. I think that if someone thinks "well, Marx had a pretty good analysis of the problems of capitalism, though he was mistaken about the best solutions", then that counts as Marx being within the window.
I don't think anyone would say that Bush was wrong about everything to the extend that he's outside of people's Overton window.
What evidence moves you to say that the primary reason for rejection of violent revolution is morality rather than practicality? (And why do you/the majority of people think that violent revolution has to end in lynchings? Is there another widely-held opinion that simply stripping the capitalists of their defining trait - wealth - would be insufficient?)