Re: Re: "Spinoza was a communist thinker long before Marx"

["Justin Schwartz" <jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Politically, Spinoza was in the neighborhood of being a liberal, advocated
bourgeois rights, religious tolerance, some democracy--not the way he'd put
it. He is rather little studied in political philosophy, a little more but
not much in politicak theory, perhas because his political doctrines were
all mixed up with religious discussions. His rough contemporaries Hobbes and
Locke kept these subjects distrinct in the modern manner. --jks

> is it true that "Spinoza was a communist thinker long before Marx"? Why
> not? After all, Plato advocated communism, at least for the elite
> Guardians. It depends on how you define "communism." Plato was a top-down
> (father knows best) type communist. And not all communists are admirable:
> think of Pol Pot or Stalin.
>
> I don't know Spinoza from spaghetti, but my handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF
> PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION says he was accused of being an atheist, while
> being a stout defender of free thought and speech and a lens-grinder. He
> refused to be bought off by a pension from Louis XIV. Sounds like a good
> guy in a lot of ways, but of course he probably wasn't politically correct
> by today's standards.
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com