Could Moses be called a Marxist?
My view on Israel is like my view on Christianity: the legendary founders had the right idea. If we can get them to follow the people they claim to follow, the problem is solved. For example, many socialists believe that Jesus was a socialist, but that his message was twisted by people who wanted power. E.g. Paul wanted to be an apostle, so Paul turned the Jesus movement into a top-down hierarchy, and later Constantine saw it as a convenient way to run his empire. I have seen socialists embrace Jesus. But do any socialists embrace Moses?
First, the obvious objections:
It is common to see Moses as a genocidal dictator, but that ignores the economic basis of his law. I think an economic study of Moses paints a very different picture. It is also common to see socialism in terms of industrial production, and hence not applicable to bronze age societies. I disagree, as the state has existed and produced things (e.g. agriculture, trade goods) since around 10,000 BC. Therefore we can ask who controls the means of production. It is also common to reject Moses as a fictional character, but I think that is irrelevant: even if Moses was a literary devce, we have a set of actions and laws we can examine accepted story.
This is why I think Moses was a socialist:
- His whole purpose was to escape Pharaoh: to escape hierarchical power, and set up a state where hierarchical power could never exist. The promised land was divided between the different families, and the land was not to be sold forever: nobody could ever accumulate more land than somebody else. (Leviticus 25:23). Moses set up a system of judges, not kings. Moses specifically opposed a centralised society. The eleventh commandment was not to build any temples: the people were to worship at local shrines of uncut stones. Building temples meant centralising power, and was forbidden. in Exodus 20 (the ten commandments chapter, last two verses) we see Moses' sense of humour, as he says when priests climb the steps of temples you can see their bare backside (in those days underwear was not common). So in the kings versus people dichotomy, Moses sat on the left, with the people and against the kings. The prophet Samuel warned that kings would be a disaster for Israel (1 Samuel 8), and so it proved: the kings took all the wealth, this caused such misery that the nation split in two (on the death of Solomon), and a few generations later the nation was destroyed by its enemies.
- Moses' apparently genocidal wars and draconian laws must be seen in terms of his economics. He was fighting against kings, for the survival of free men, then of course war was inevitable. (The oft-cited case of Numbers 31 is a different topic: this post is about economics, not the plague of Peor and bronze-age societal structure.) The draconian laws are not draconian when we realise that everybody was economically equal. When people are economically equal, every person has the same privileges as the wealthiest person today. Today we still have draconian laws (e.g. the death penalty, or "three strikes and you are out"), but if you are wealthy they only apply in the most extreme circumstances. Wealth means the judge will always be understanding: he is one of you. Do not look at the penalties, look at who has the money.
- Regarding Moses' system of judges, this arose from the common sysem among nomads (recall that Moses ideas came from the nimads of Midian): all decisions are decided in a tribal council where everyone has a voice. The judge is just the leader chosen by the family based tribe. Every member of the family has a say. That is, the system is fundamentally socialist in nature. The book of judges was later edited by kings, but that is another story. For example, recall that when the book of Judges refers to tens of "thousands", the word for thousand is "aleph", the word meaning "leader", such as a family leader. The stories of "six hundred thousand" men in the Exodus, or Samson killing "a thousand men" with the jawbone of an ass, are clearly nonsense. They were six hundred families, and Samson killed a family leader. This was the story of a nomadic people based on family councils, and opposing kings: their decisions were socialist.
At least, that is how I see it. I know that some socialists are sympathetic to Jesus. Are any socialists sympathetic to Moses?
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