The Essence of Marxism

Stefan Molyneux

"I agree with Strawson's analysis that Aristotle's metaphysics is descriptive, rather than revisionary. In my opinion, if language is used at a tool to describe reality and action in reality, it must be descriptive.  "Is the current Marxist trend to manipulate language and redefine words an attempt to decouple thinking from reality, to facilitate untruths?"  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid.

00:04Questions from listeners. I agree with Strawson's analysis that Aristotle's metaphysics is descriptive

00:11rather than revisionary. In my opinion, if language is used as a tool to describe reality

00:18and action in reality, it must be descriptive. Is the current Marxist trend to manipulate language

00:24and redefine words and attempt to decouple thinking from reality to facilitate untruths?

00:31Yeah, I mean, so of course, language that is used to describe reality should be descriptive,

00:37not prescriptive. If you're going to look at the sun and say, well, the sun is bright,

00:43well, that's descriptive. Now, metaphysics is the discipline of philosophy that describes the nature

00:52and properties of objective reality. And as a result, it needs to focus and passively derive

01:01its descriptions from the evidence of the senses. It is really an attempt to classify

01:08the evidence of the senses into principles that can be absorbed and understood as universals,

01:16which is why, you know, if you take a step, you don't think that your next step is going to

01:20suddenly detach you from gravity and have you flying into the stratosphere. So, from that

01:26standpoint, language is a passive tool that categorizes the evidence of the senses.

01:33Now, then, of course, the question is, what is the purpose of metaphysics? And, of course,

01:39all creatures with sense organs process metaphysics, though, of course, not in a conceptual way.

01:44Lions have to know the difference between a tree that they can climb and a zebra that they can eat.

01:50Right? So, there is, life requires the accurate processing of objective reality because objective

01:54reality is where you get your food and your shelter and your water and your reproduction and so on.

02:02Right? So, all creatures with sense organs have to process, in a sense, metaphysics, though,

02:08obviously, of course, not at a conceptual level. So, you do want your metaphysics to be descriptive

02:17rather than prescriptive because that's another way in which you know the difference between somebody

02:22whose mind is working properly and somebody whose mind is working badly.

02:26So, somebody who's going through psychosis is going through a situation, I mean, in certain

02:33elements of psychosis. They're going through a situation where the brain is not describing

02:38reality but rather manufacturing reality. It's the same thing if you are taking drugs.

02:44Then, you have a problem if the drugs overwhelm your sense data and you are seeing things down there,

02:52you're having a trip, or they call it a trip, could be a bad trip with demons or a good trip with angels

02:56or whatever. But you have, you're having a trip and you are manufacturing sense data, you know,

03:05the sort of, you put on dark side of the moon and you can see the music streaming along through the

03:10air. But music is audio, not visual. And so, you are manufacturing your own sense stimuli which is

03:17not where you want to be in life. These are the people who, you know, think they've sprouted wings,

03:23they think they can fly, they jump off the edges of buildings and so on. And they are manufacturing

03:28their own stimuli and that's a mark of a fairly significant psychological disorder.

03:33Schizophrenics can hallucinate, they can hear voices and so on. So, one of the marks between

03:39a good mental health or good mental functioning and bad mental health or bad mental functioning

03:45is whether your metaphysics are passive or active. Are you passively receiving sense data or are you

03:52actively creating sense data through some sort of brain disorder that substitutes visions

03:59manufactured from within the mind for sense data coming in passively through the organs of the

04:05senses? Now, of course, the purpose of nature to be commanded must be obeyed. The purpose of having

04:11a rational and empirical metaphysics is to be able to manipulate reality to your own advantage.

04:19A simple example would be you're hiking along in the woods and it's really raining badly and you

04:26want to get dry and you see a cave. Now, let's assume the cave is empty or there's some sort of

04:32overhang you can see. Then you can go and take shelter from the rain in the cave. So, you've kept

04:38yourself dry by taking shelter, by accurately identifying what it is that you are looking at, which is

04:45a cave. If you are hungry, you're a lion, you want to chase the zebra, as I mentioned before, not the

04:51tree. So, the purpose, of course, of accurately identifying things in reality is to be able to act

04:55and manipulate those things in reality to further your chances of survival, of flourishing, of

05:01reproduction. So, it goes from metaphysic, which all animals practice at an instinctual level,

05:10to epistemology. Epistemology, of course, is a study of that which determines truth from falsehood.

05:17And animals, in general, don't really have the ability to deny the evidence of their senses.

05:24So, their sense of what is true and false is at an instinctual level. Whereas human beings,

05:31of course, we have the ability to abstract, conceptualize. And because we have the ability

05:36to abstract and conceptualize, we have the ability to get things wrong. I mean, the duck-billed

05:43platypus and sort of the edge case scenario for being a mammal, right? It has hair, it gives birth

05:49to eggs, though, and it is warm-blooded. It's, you know, it's an edge case, right? So, we can get

05:53things wrong. I mean, not that, but it's an edge case, right? So, we can have edge cases. So, because

06:00human beings can abstract or conceptualize from sense data, we can universalize, we have concepts.

06:05Because we have all of that, we have the capacity to get things wrong, which is why we need the

06:09discipline of epistemology. That which conforms to reason and evidence is the valid and true.

06:16That which is contradicted by reason and evidence is the invalid or false. And we need that discipline.

06:24Now, once we have that discipline of rational epistemology, then we can work towards ethics.

06:35So, it is in metaphysics that we get the sort of three laws of logic, and that that which

06:41is contradictory cannot be valid. It is through that, then, that we get... So, metaphysics is

06:47the is-statement. Metaphysics is is, and epistemology is if-then. If it conforms to reason and evidence,

06:57then it is true and valid, then it is true and valid. And ethics is is-should, is-ought. So, is-if-then is-ought.

07:07Is-this is the nature of reality. We've got epistemology, which is if sense data and concepts conform to

07:16reason and evidence, they are valid and true. And then we have, if-ought. If a moral theory

07:24is universally preferable behavior, conforms to universally preferable behavior,

07:28then we ought to follow it. Then it is valid and true. So, I'm going to sort of very quick,

07:34a very sort of quick route through it. Now, another way of looking at it, if we look at sort of the

07:38physical disciplines, then we would say that metaphysics is sense data, metaphysics as the

07:47experience. The philosophy of the metaphysics is the coordination between concepts that accurately

07:54organize and predict the sense data. So, we have a sense data as metaphysics, then epistemology would

08:04be physics, which is determining truth and falsehood, or the science, scientific disciplines as a whole.

08:10And I suppose there's a layer. I'm not sure what we would call it. For me, it's always sense data,

08:16physics, engineering. You need shelter. You accurately process the world around you. You build your shelter

08:24in order to gather materials and build your shelter in order to get the shelter. So, sense data would be

08:30accurately perceiving the world around you. And metaphysics, epistemology would be, is this a

08:36suitable material for building a shelter? And then, of course, the purpose of all of that is to actually

08:43build a shelter, right? To actually build a shelter. I'm not sure where I would put the engineering part

08:49of that. So, I might have to bookmark that in my brain. I mean, it is really the purpose of the

08:54metaphysics and the epistemology is to altering things, right? I mean, the lion has to correctly

09:00perceive the zebra. The lion has to pursue the zebra. And the purpose of pursuing and killing the zebra is

09:05to eat the zebra and therefore survive as the lion. And, of course, the lions that most correctly and

09:11accurately perceive the zebras and most accurately and correctly are able to chase and kill the zebras

09:18are the lions that survive the best. Except, of course, if the lions get too efficient, in other

09:25words, if the zebras are unable to flee the lions, then the lions eat all the zebras, overpopulate,

09:31and then die off because they have no more prey. So, it's one of these sort of esoteric balances that

09:36needs to happen in nature as a whole. So, I will bookmark that and get back to that. It's an interesting

09:41question. In the current Marxist trend, says the listener, to manipulate language and redefine words,

09:46is the current Marxist trend to manipulate language and redefine words, an attempt to

09:51decouple thinking from reality to facilitate untruths? Well, there are those who get their

09:59sustenance primarily from reality. And then there are those who get their sustenance primarily from

10:06others. I mean, in the sort of objectivist or Ayn Rand formulation, this is all the second-handers,

10:15social metaphysicians, around truth. They don't ask what is true. They ask what do people believe

10:22is true. Now, the model of gaining resources from others generally follows the pattern of women and

10:33children. This is not to equate women and children. I'm just saying that, and of course, there are many

10:38women who are very independent and get their resources directly from reality. But as a whole,

10:44and for the sustainability of the species, you know, with a 2.1, at least 2.1 birth rate,

10:51then what women do is they raise the children. And of course, the having and raising of children

10:59requires significant amounts of extra calories. I mean, just growing the baby requires extra calories.

11:04Breastfeeding requires extra calories. There was a fairly tragic comic, Desperate Housewives show

11:12from many years ago, where there was a woman who kept breastfeeding her child because it cut down,

11:22her calorie expenditures went up, so it kept her weight low. So, having and raising kids is very

11:30calorie intensive for women. And so, it is generally the men who have to produce the excess calories

11:39that are consumed by women and children. So, a man on his own might only need 2,500 calories a day.

11:48A man with a wife and kids might need to produce 10,000 or more calories a day for the wife and kids.

11:54So, now again, the kids, you know, starting from a fairly early age historically, would produce their

11:59own calories and women would raise chickens and do some hunter-gatherer burying, bury stuff.

12:09So, they would be producing some of their own calories, but in general, it would be the sort of

12:14physical labor that the man would have to do and the meat that he would have to gather and so on,

12:17and the protection he would have to provide to other marauding or predatory men would be pretty

12:22significant. So, the way that women and children would generally get their calories would be through

12:28the excess labor of the men. Now, of course, there's two ways that you can get resources

12:37from other human beings. One is to provide a positive and the other is to withhold a negative.

12:46Right? So, if there's some restaurant you really like to go to, they provide a good meal

12:50at a good price. You go and you order food from that restaurant and you eat and they're providing

12:54a positive. It's win-win, right? If there's some guy who jumps you in an alley and puts a knife to

13:00your ribs and says, give me a wallet, then he is gaining resources from you by, not by the provision

13:06of a positive, but by the withholding of a negative. In other words, if you, I mean, the general idea is

13:11that if you give the guy your wallet, he's not going to stab you or kill you or wound you or maim you,

13:18right? Or to put it another way, you're going to lose your wallet either way. You can either lose

13:22your wallet with a lower chance of a hole in your side or you can lose your wallet with a higher

13:28chance of a hole in your side, but you can lose your wallet either way. Now, these provisions of

13:33positive versus, it's a win-win versus win-lose shows up in the marital scenario in a variety of

13:42ways. The typical is, you know, I mean, the win-win is your wife loves you, you love your wife,

13:47you're happy to provide, she's great, she's funny, she's warm, she's affectionate, runs a great

13:52household, raises her kids in a beautiful way and, you know, happy to provide, all that kind of stuff,

13:56right? So that's the provision of the positive. Now, that is, I don't know, Todd, guess what

14:03percentage of marriages that is? But I don't think it's the overwhelming majority.

14:08So then the question is, what is the provision? What is the withholding of the negative?

14:16Well, the withholding of the negative is the sort of, you know, the sort of caustic, twisted

14:20complaints, the nagging, the withholding of affection, the slamming of the cupboard doors,

14:28the slamming down of food on the table, the discontents, the, you know, all of that sort of

14:32stuff. So in that situation or scenario, the woman is inflicting a negative and men can do

14:38this too. We're just talking about some typical marriage configuration throughout her evolution.

14:42So in general, some women gain their resources through the provision of positives and some women

14:50gain their resources through withholding of the negatives, the threatening or punishing, right?

14:55And I'm going to, I'm going to be mad at you. I'm not going to have any affection towards you.

14:59I'm going to nag you until you do what I want. And these tend to be standoffs. The negative,

15:05negative tend to be standoffs. So a typical example would be the woman whose husband won't get a job,

15:11right? He's lazy. He just doesn't do what he needs to do to provide for the family. So of course,

15:19you know, she encourages him, but then maybe she finds out that that encouragement doesn't really

15:23motivate him. So then she just needs to, I mean, it's sort of an instinctual thing, right?

15:28I'm not saying it's the man's fault. It's just kind of how these things play out.

15:30But what she's going to do is she's going to start making it uncomfortable for him to be home.

15:38She's going to, in a sense, drive him out of the house so that he can go and get some resources

15:43from reality. She's going to drive him out of the house and make it less and less comfortable

15:49for him to be home so that he goes out and does something. I mean, I remember hearing the story of

15:55a sales manager when I was in the business world who would say to his salespeople, what are you

15:59doing here? I don't like, just don't be here. I mean, go to a donut shop, go to a, go to sit in

16:05your car in the parking lot, just don't be here. Because if you're here, I know you're not outselling

16:09a product. So just don't be here. And he just wanted people to get out of the office and go do

16:15their sales thing. So if there's a man, there's sort of this, this is cliche about marriage,

16:22right? The sort of cliche about marriage is that nothing bothers a wife more than seeing

16:26a husband sitting on a couch. Now, there's two ways that you can look at a man, you know,

16:34half dozing on a couch. You know, obviously, if he's been working two days straight, then

16:39he needs to rest, right? He needs to rest. If on the other hand, he's not been doing much

16:45of anything all week, then he's not resting. He's lazy. So these are the different language,

16:51right? It's a different language. Now, appealing to the moral conscience and egalitarianism of

16:58others in order to get your resources is a sort of tried and true younger sibling strategy.

17:05Older siblings tend to be kind of grabby, and they certainly do have the capacity to gain

17:10and keep extra resources, because they're bigger and stronger, faster, more dominant.

17:15So for younger siblings to appeal to authority in the, ah, no fair, no fair, that is instinctual.

17:27And so they have to appeal to the egalitarian impulses, almost always of their mother, given

17:35that, you know, when you had, you know, four, six, eight kids, the woman was home managing the

17:41children and making sure that her investment was spread equally, which means resources had

17:46to be distributed aggressively, let's say. So for the younger sibling, a meritocracy is

17:57not good. It is not good for a younger sibling to rely upon a meritocracy, because in a meritocracy,

18:05there's such inequality between the capacities, let's say you've got a kid who's 10, and you've

18:11got a kid who's two. Well, the two-year-old cannot rely on a meritocracy. The two-year-old

18:16can only survive on, I would say, coercive redistribution, where if the older kids are just

18:23grabbing food, that the mother has to take the food from the older kids, even against their

18:28strenuous complaints and give it to the younger kids. So the younger sibling has to raise holy hell

18:33through language, cry and complain. If the elder sibling is getting excess resources, as the

18:40elder sibling, and again, I'm talking about this, you know, the absence of chivalric or

18:45familial or sibling love, you know, where you, you know, here, here, a little, little girl, you can have

18:51some of my food because I love you. I mean, that certainly is present in families, but let's just

18:58say, you need to have a plan B if that's not present. And the plan B is to say, from each

19:05according to their ability, to each according to their need, right? This is why the statement from

19:10communism is so powerful, because it strikes right at the heart and right at the cord, at the core of

19:17our family situations as we grow. From each according to their ability, right? In hierarchy,

19:23we have the father, the mother, the older siblings, from each according to their ability,

19:29to each according to their need. That rings true for us, because it is how we evolve. It is how

19:35families work. It's how human beings have survived. And in general, it has also come about because,

19:43I mean, there are certainly some societies where child sacrifice is pretty common, but if you've ever

19:49seen those videos, like, storks will do this, if there's a runt of the litter, then the mother

19:55stork will sometimes just pick that runt of the litter up and, you know, drop it off the edge of

19:59the nest, so it basically falls to its death, or it's going to get eaten, probably, right? So,

20:07gaining resources through others is foundational to our survival. It is, in general, of course,

20:17a child situation. But given that, I mean, it's anyone's guess as to how many people truly and

20:26deeply grow up over the course of their lives, it is anybody's guess, but I don't think it's very high

20:32in terms of people who actually grow up and accept sort of the full responsibility of adulthood.

20:37I don't think it's very many. And getting your resources through language, through the infliction

20:47of negatives or the provision of positives, right? So, if you look at mothers, say, and they're

20:54dealing with older kids, they can say, it's really nice for you to share with your little sister.

21:01I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. That's very kind. And she gives them that big hugs

21:05and kisses. So, she's positively reinforcing him voluntarily transferring his resources.

21:11He's got a little extra food, giving it to his younger sister, right? So, that's sort of a positive

21:18reinforcement of that behavior. Or she can say, you know, stop being a selfish jerk and give some of

21:28your extra bread to your sister. Or I'm going to punish you. I'm going to be cold to you. I'm going to

21:32criticize you. I'm going to, whatever, withdraw affection. Sorry, cold to you, withdraw affection,

21:37same thing. But that's how, is it encouraged to share? Or is a lack of sharing punished aggressively?

21:47That's the question, right? Now, if the older sibling's lack of sharing is punished, right?

21:56You've got more bread than you can eat. For heaven's sakes, give a piece to your younger sister,

22:01you selfish little kid, or whatever, right? Probably harsher than that, but I don't like

22:05that language even in a theoretical. Well, then the resources are resentfully handed over.

22:15Fine, have the extra piece of bread, right? And a sort of scenario is set up wherein conflict

22:23between the siblings is going to escalate, right? And that's, you know, the smirk, right?

22:28The, let's say that it could be boy or girl, but it's just a bit easier to have boy-girl in this

22:34scenario. Let's say the little girl is not getting enough complaints of the mother or the mother

22:39forces the older boy, the older brother to give her resources, and then she smirks, right? And then

22:44you end up with this sort of win-lose. And, of course, in the hierarchy of siblings,

22:49equality of opportunity in a free market sense is a complete disaster because the older kids get

22:57excess resources, the younger kids get deficient resources, and the family loses out as a whole

23:03because if the younger siblings don't get enough resources to survive, to thrive, to resist disease,

23:10to, you know, not starve to death, then all of the parental investment in the having and raising

23:15of kids goes out the window, is squandered, is lost. And, of course, it's a big negative emotional

23:23experience for the parents, of course, right? So, forced redistribution is essential for the

23:32survival of younger siblings. Now, we can say it's not that the parent, you know, forcibly grabs the

23:37piece of bread from the older siblings and gives it to the younger siblings, but if that is what is

23:42necessary, then that is what has to occur. So, the parents will start with encouragement, like you

23:47should share with your sister, but if the older sibling does not share with the sister, then

23:52the parent just has to take, just has to take the food and give it to the sister. Or, you know, to put

23:59it in my usual formulation, those parents who didn't do that, fewer of their offspring survived. So, in

24:06general, the father and the elder siblings, usually male in this situation, are the ones wrestling

24:12resources directly from reality. The younger siblings and the females are the ones who are

24:19gaining their resources through others, not directly through reality, but through language,

24:25through complaints. I mean, if we go all the way back to infancy, like a newborn baby. Newborn baby is

24:31hungry. Newborn baby cries in order to get the mother to provide a milk, right? So, that's gaining

24:39resources through complaining. And, of course, the baby will very quickly attempt or work with the

24:47parents to produce happiness for both by, you know, giggling and laughing and so on when the parent is

24:55doing something that is delightful to the baby. So, you end up reinforcing positive behavior

24:59and solving problems through complaints, right? I'm hungry. I'm going to cry until I get my food.

25:06I'm happy. I'm going to laugh and chortle so that my parent keeps doing what I want.

25:11Now, of course, what matters when you use language to acquire resources is that you actually get the

25:16resources. And the younger you are, the shorter your time frame to get those resources. In other words,

25:23the less you care about the long-term effects of gaining resources. A man who's single can choose

25:30not to eat and, you know, he'll be a little hungry. And a man, you know, there are these guys,

25:38you see them all over social media doing these, like, multi-day fasts or whatever, right? So,

25:43you know, men can, especially if you've got a little extra weight, you can. There was a Scottish

25:47guy who went for a long time without eating, just taking supplements because he wanted to lose

25:52weight. So, if you're an adult, then you can choose not to eat. But you can't choose, I mean,

26:00you can't put your baby on a fast. It's going to die, right? Babies need food every couple of hours.

26:06So, for younger siblings and for mothers in particular, you need the calories to produce

26:15the milk, to breastfeed your babies and so on, right? So, your time frame for getting resources

26:20is shorter, right? Lots of men have had to, you see these people in sort of tropical countries,

26:29they're skinny as rails and they're hunting, right? They don't have a lot of access fast. So,

26:34they have to hunt when they're hungry and they have to push their bodies forward even when their

26:38bodies don't have much nutrition at all to live on. So, the lower you are on the higher

26:45hierarchy of getting resources from others rather than from reality directly, the shorter your

26:50time frame and the more intense your complaints tend to be. Babies cry until they get what they want.

26:57Most older kids have a little bit more pride, but will still work to get their resources.

27:01So, then, of course, one of the big challenges is every advantage in this analysis can be a fate,

27:13can be fraudulent. So, of course, if you have a 10-year-old boy and his two-year-old little

27:20sister, it's not her fault that she can't get resources as effectively as the 10-year-old boy.

27:27It's not her fault she's born later, right? Not her fault she's 20% of his age, right?

27:32So, we don't blame people, like morally, rationally, we don't blame people for things that aren't their

27:38fault. So, one of the ways in which people get resources is they create the impression or provide

27:48the simulacrum that things aren't their fault. So, I mean, you've heard this probably a million

27:55times in call-in shows. Somebody says, well, my mother was a victim of my father. And I say,

27:59you know, the same thing, which is a reasonably attractive woman. She probably had, you know,

28:035 to 10 to 15 guys who'd be willing to date her. She chose to date your father. She chose to

28:08get engaged to him, get married to him, to give him children, to stay with him. This is not a victim.

28:14This is not a victim. Because if you can convince people that the misfortunes in your life are not

28:21your fault, then their desire to provide you resources tends to increase. I mean, it's a single

28:28mom phenomenon, right? So, if you can pretend to be a victim, the people's desire to give you

28:33resources tends to go up considerably. Now, all of this, of course, should be going back and forth

28:39in the interplay in the free market, like in a stateless, voluntary society. All of these interplays

28:45would be interesting and complex and would be subject to free will, moral evaluation, and choice.

28:50The problem, of course, is that the youngest, this is the two-year-old girl, always has the option of

28:58going to complain to her mother about not getting resources, right? She almost has that option.

29:03And, I mean, maybe not when she's 20, but certainly when she's very little, she's going to go to her

29:07mom and she's, I'm hungry. Mom's going to say, okay, well, you 10-year-old kid, give him, give her

29:12some bread. And if you're not going to do it voluntarily, I'm just going to punish you and make you

29:17because the two-year-old has to survive. So, you always have that option, of course,

29:25of running to the parents when you're little. Now, because of the coercive power of the state

29:31to redistribute, to manufacture and redistribute resources, well, to fake, to money print, to borrow.

29:39So, because of the capacity of the state to redistribute resources, you always have a mommy or a daddy

29:47to run to in order to get resources. And in order to get resources, you have to pretend to be

29:55a victim. Now, of course, there are some people who are victims and so on, but it's a very sort

30:00of interesting question, is that are there, in fact, adult victims? I mean, I'm not talking,

30:06you know, the difference between 17 to 18, suddenly you go from 0% to 100% self-ownership. I mean,

30:13I get there's residual effects and so on, but are there adult victims who need resources?

30:19So, let's say somebody gets sick, and you say, oh, well, they need resources because they can't

30:23work. It's like, well, but why don't they have disability insurance? Why don't they have

30:26this kind of stuff, right, in a free market, right? Are there victims, right? Say, oh, well,

30:32this person got lung cancer, but they never smoked. So, it's just bad luck. It's like, well, yeah,

30:36but they need insurance for that kind of stuff. And if they didn't buy the insurance,

30:39are they victims? And to me, it's, you know, it's a very interesting question. And again,

30:44talking about a free society, a state of society, are there victims in a free society? Do they really

30:50exist? Now, I think one of the reasons why people don't grow up is because they always have

30:56sort of all-powerful state that they can pretend to be a victim with regards to, and they can gain

31:05resources through the power of the state. So, they don't have to grow up because they have this

31:09forever parent that's going to redistribute resources in their direction. So, the formulation

31:15of the question from the listener is the current Marxist trend to manipulate language and redefine

31:20words in an attempt to decouple thinking from reality to facilitate untruths. Well, I view it as

31:27a leftover evolutionary strategy from childhood, because when you have the redistributive state,

31:35it is very hard to shake the habits of early childhood and pretend to be victims in return

31:42for resources. I mean, the two-year-old girl is a victim if she doesn't get enough resources. If her

31:47older siblings are taking all the food, she's a genuine victim, and she needs to get, like, the food needs to

31:53get to her no matter what. And it's very tough for people to grow up with this forever parent of the

32:00state, forever redistributing resources based upon the increasing pretense of victimhood. And the strategy

32:08of pretending victimhood in order to get resources, that strategy is not going to be wished or willed away

32:16by language. You cannot, on a reliable basis, you cannot convince people to give up that which is

32:25necessary for their survival. I mean, all the gene sets or all of the mindsets, all of the genetic

32:33underpinnings of thinking, all of those mindsets that could be convinced into harming their own

32:38reproductive chances did not survive nearly as well. So, a woman who's got three kids by three different

32:43men, saying to her, you're not a victim. I mean, if by pretending to be a victim, she gets resources

32:50for her children, you're trying to talk her out of reproductive advantage. And evolutionarily speaking,

32:56you just cannot talk people out of reproductive advantage. Now, of course, you can say in society

33:02as a whole, in the long run, well, but it's going to be bad for society as a whole in the long run.

33:07But if you remember earlier, I was talking about how you have shorter time frames.

33:12The further you are from directly producing your own resources in reality, right? And a woman with

33:18three kids, she can't go hunt. She can't exactly take them all out into the field and plant and

33:25build fences and handle livestock. And like, she's got to raise the kids. She's got to be there to

33:30protect the kids. She's got to carry the kids. They're sweet, right? Babies, in particular,

33:35toddlers too. So, she just has, and it could be men too, right? We're just talking typical,

33:40right? But she has too short a set of time frames to worry about the long-term impacts,

33:45right? So, the famous statement from Keynes, right? Well, what about the long run? Well,

33:49in the long run, we're all dead. I mean, certainly, if you were to abandon the welfare state and

33:56substitute free market charity, the poor would be infinitely better off in the long run,

34:02because there'd be a path out of poverty. However, the woman who needs to put food on the table

34:08today, tomorrow, this week, cannot afford that risk. They cannot afford to take that chance.

34:14I mean, I remember, I said, Harry Brown would say way back in the day that if they privatized

34:18education, it'd be solved in about a week or two, maybe a month. You know, people would just start

34:22teaching classes in their garage and so on. Like, things would just be solved pretty quickly.

34:27But if we're talking a week or two or a month, well, the single moms can't not feed their kids

34:34for a week, because they're going to die. I mean, it seems like some single moms might be able to

34:38survive, but certainly babies, right? And they can't take that risk. Which is why, kind of in a funny

34:44way, those with the least power tend to be the most conservative, because they can't survive

34:52significant changes in the environment, or at least there's that fear, right? Like, the people

34:57with the most savings can be the most assertive at work. You know, like the old joke about, you

35:04know, Bitcoin goes up a certain amount, and then your boss asks you to do something, and you say,

35:08watch your mouth, right? So, those who have the fewest resources tend to be the most conservative

35:14in that they're going to cook up the most fuss in any change to existing resource acquisition

35:19or distribution. So, if you go from the welfare state to charity, the people currently dependent

35:23on the welfare state are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain the existing system.

35:28They can't afford the risk of transition to a new system. Whereas, of course, the people

35:33who've got a bunch of savings or who have a high-earning husband are taking care of them

35:37and so on, they can afford those changes. They can afford to take that risk. So, when it comes

35:42to pretending to be a victim in order to gain resources from a coercive authority, which

35:49is Younger Sibling 101, when you end up with a perpetuity of that coercive authority, which

35:57is the redistributionist state, then you say, well, people are pretending to be victims. It's

36:04like, well, sure. Sure they are. And so what? The tiger pretends to be grass in order to sneak

36:09up on its prey. There's a trap spider that pretends to be a patch of sand and then grabs

36:15whatever beetles come by. The camouflage is foundational. So, ah, but it's not true. And

36:21it's like, I get all of that. But truth bows to survival. Truth bows to survival. That's the

36:30nature of life. Now, if you go completely crazy, you're not likely to survive. So there has to

36:35sort of, there's a happy median, at least for short-term survival. Truth bows to survival.

36:42The slave will not rebel if the slave gets to survive. Maybe, hopefully, reproduce. So we

36:49will, certainly in the short run, we will discard the truth for the sake of survival. And saying

36:59to people, well, you shouldn't do that. And I get all of that. But that's very sort of anti-evolutionary,

37:04right? Because evolutionarily speaking, we had to survive. Those who place truth above

37:10survival did not survive. And therefore, and those who place no value on truth tend not to

37:16survive either. So, you know, this is sort of sad. I mean, we all have this tipping point,

37:21right? You know, if you've been on a seesaw, you know, you walk up the seesaw, you get to

37:25the fulcrum in the middle. We all have this tipping point, which is we say enough truth that

37:30we have self-respect. We say enough truth that we can be loved in the world. We say enough truth

37:34that we can have a good conscience. But, you know, too much truth and we get driven out and ostracized.

37:41So, an attempt to decouple thinking from reality to facilitate untruths, well, appealing to coercive

37:48authority in order to get resources is a foundational survival strategy. And it's hard to ask people

37:54to grow up if they're forever being treated as children and given the powers of children to,

38:00well, as children, you're genuinely a victim. But to pretend to be a victim in order to gain resources

38:05is foundational to survival. So, we can look at it as sort of Marxist analysis and I get the

38:12corruption, I get the immorality and so on. I get all of that. And pretending to be a victim in order

38:17to gain resources does corrupt society as a whole. Because your enemy becomes the people then who tell

38:23the truth and say, you're not a victim. Right? That's, your enemies become the truth-tellers.

38:28And you must maintain the pretense of victimhood to gain resources from the redistributive state.

38:35You must maintain that perception of victimhood. And anybody who tries to give you agency and

38:39maturity and responsibility becomes your enemy because it threatens the redistribution of resources.

38:45And once you have significant portions of the population who survive on falsehood,

38:50they will be willing to attack and kill those who tell the truth and say, you're not victims.

38:57And that's where the violence comes from. I mean, there's the implicit coercion of the

39:03redistribution of resources taking from each according to their ability to each according to

39:07their needs. There's all of that for sure. But then, because the victim narrative is so powerful

39:16and so, I mean, you're hunting the productive through the predatory camouflage of victimhood.

39:25And when the pretense of victimhood is no longer believed, the naked force comes out. In the same

39:32way that, you know, the mother will encourage the older brother to give some bread to his younger

39:37sister. But if that doesn't work, then she'll just grab it and hand it over. And, you know,

39:42the amount of sort of human maturation and growth that is inhibited by this redistributive state that

39:48rewards people massively for never growing up and never taking agency. It's really tragic. I mean,

39:55the amount of potential that's lost is almost beyond words. So it's a great question. And I

39:59really do appreciate your time, care and attention in these fantastic questions. And

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