Intro

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer and as such I avoided him for along time. I did not want anything to do with dark, pesimistic Russian novels and TV movies, such as I had read and made fun of growing up in Cuba.

But Leo was different.

Reading his The Slavery of Our Times made me feel like I, instead, had been channeling Tolstoy as I was writing about about the Radical system.

Pacifist Lev Nikolayevich

Tolstoy was a pacifist, but he could have been a Radical. Paficism is one of the many pointy things that stick out, but that is not the root of it. At the roort of it is the basis of the Radical system.

In Confession and My Religion, he pretty much said that he was a follower of Jesus.

“It seemed to me that the only true way was for me to try to follow the doctrine of [the apocryphal] Jesus.”

Leo Tolstoy, My Religion

Fiat Religions

Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism.
Judaism influenced Christianity.
Christianity and Judaism influenced Islam.

These systems, starting with Zoroastrianism, installed an all powerful Boss god at the top and declared all other religions (systems) heathen,

Systems are long-lasting, widespread and resilient. We can push back on them with effort, but over time, the system usually comes out ahead.

Seth Godin

The Internet and the Large Language Models say that Tolstoy declared himself a Christian, but that is a very lazy way of characterizing it. You can look in Confession and My Religion books to verify it.

He did come up with his own believe system based upon {the supposedly teachings] of Jesus, as per the Christian Bible, while rejecting the institutional church dogmas (orthodox, catholic, protestant, etc).

Violence

Great Baddow, translator, Chelmsford, October 1900

To Tolstoy, violence done by man to man is wrong and we agree. To us war, another form of violence, is wrong, too. In fact, any kind of man’s violence whether to individuals or group is wrong.

To Tolstoy is not that people should be restrained from violence, but that violence should become abhorrent.

Once we see a system, we can change it.

Seth Godin

Meaning

It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided, but the men—divided into mere segments of men—broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enugh to make a pin or a nail, but exhaust itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.

Lev Tolstoy, preface to The Slavery of Our Times

Work loses all meaning.

It is not that men are ill-fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and, therefore, look to wealth as the only means of pleasure.

Leo Tolstoy, preface to The Slavery of Our Times

We could not agree more.

Centralization

Progress in human well-being”, Tolstoy says, can only be achieved by relying more and more on reason and conscience, and less and less on man-made laws That is because laws are made by a few people.

Each of us are owners of our reason and conciousness. We can change the laws that we agreed on. No one action, he says, can be the next step for all men in all places>

This is decentralization!

Tranquilizing Explanations

After the emancipation of the slaves, … wealth entrusted by God to some people in order that they may use part of it in [what they consider] good works, and so there is no harm in some people’s being rich and otheres poor.>

These explanations satisfied the rich and the poor (especially the rich) for a long time.

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

Later it was up to science,

Political economy… declared that it had discovered the laws which regulate division of labour and the dkistribution of the products of labour among men.

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

These are presented as unalterable laws governing man’s economic activities.” He also called them “tranquilizing scientific explanations,>

“Political economy, which declared that it had discovered the laws which regulate division of labour and the distribution of the products of labour among men.”

“Only on this way can I explain the amazing blindness of good people in our society who sincerely desire the welfare of animals, but yet with quiet consciences devour the lives the lives of their brother men.”

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

In other words, the welfare of animals have to be defended. The welfare of people, on the other hand, only if it does not affect the pocketbook.

Ownership

“… these people are in this condition because the railway belongs to this company, the silk factory to that gentlemen, and all the foundries, factories, typographies, and laundries to capitalists.”

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

The above is Fiat ownership. In the Radical system everybody who contributes to a company is a co-owner of that company determined by their RADs.

Slavery

“…One form of slavery is not abolished until another has already replaced it. … [So that] one small part of the people has full power over the labour and the life of a larger number”

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times</stand> </div>

Unfortunately, this is true to this day</stan>. The word slavery> is hard to write, but we must recognize that the Fiat system, to this day, is based on it.

The cause of the miserable condition of the workers is slavery. The cause of slavery is legislaton. Legislation rests on organized violence.

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

Businesses Are Unecessary

… if once upon a time [a business as it is today] was necessary, it is now absolutely unnecessary, … harmful, and dangerous. … because the effect of this organization on all the evil that exists in society is not to lessen and correct, but rather to strengthen and comfirm that evil.

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

Radical companies are the alternative.

Decentralizaton

… life flows onward, and the conditiions of life and people’s view change

Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times

Tolstoy figured out that there would be many ways of doing things. In the case of the Radical system, the Foundation is basis of doing this.

Conclusion

The thing that this work and all the works on the subject are missing, is even an indication of how to go about undoing the many things that he identifies as evil and not good for people.

Admittedly, this was written well over a hundred years ago, so thisis not a criticism of Tolstoy’s work. Rather, I am pointing out that the Radical system exist as a follow up to what all the writers spoke of and point the way to what we can do about it.

In the books Radical Companies and Radical in Depth we get into specific details.