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, such as I had read growing up in Cuba.
But Leo was different.
Reading his The Slavery of Our Times made me feel like I had been channeling Tolstoy as I was writing about about the Radical system.
Pacifist Lyof 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 Radical system.
In Confession and My Religion he pretty much said that he was a follower of (the apocryphal) 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 is a lazy way of characterizing it. You can look in his books Confession and My Religion books to verify it.
He did come up with his own believe system based upon the teachings of Jesus, as per the Christian Bible, while rejecting the institutional church dogmas (orthodox, catholic, protestant, etc).
Violence
“…we need not suppose a man’s nature to be immutable, and all progress for ever impossible.”
Gkeat 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, group, or nations is wrong.
To Tolstoy is not that people should be restrained from violence, but that “violence should become abhorrent,”
- You want to stop all wars?
- You want violence out of police action?
- SHOW ITS ABHORRANCE!
Abhorrance comes directly from each one of us.
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.”
Leo 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,” says Baddow, “in human well-being 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. It is centralized in their land.
Reason and conscience comes from each of us. It is decentralized. 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 my 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
Unfortunately, this is true to this day. The word ‘slavery’ is hard to write, but we must recognize that the Fiat system 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, what you put on top of the Foundation is up to the many ways of doing things.
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 Detail we get into specific detals.
