I’ve heard it many times from liberals who either mean the revolution would be more violent than our current system (it wouldn’t be), or suggesting that communists claim that we will achieve utopia if we’re just allowed to commit much brutality in the mean time (obviously false). This phrase annoys me so much, not just as a utilitarian, but also as someone who understands the meaning of words, as they are either suggesting that (in the moralistic sense) literally nothing is worth doing, ever, or that morality shouldn’t matter because everything is immoral anyway.
Remember the rule of thumb:
Killing a fifty year old aristocrat who could have lived to eighty had you not actively killed them is a killing.
Shortening a factory worker’s life by thirty years so they die at fifty, through poverty, resource insecurity/low quality resources like cheap unhealthy food, and chronic stress and overwork, all leading to much higher risk of deadly illnesses like heart disease and cancer is an “inevetable consequence of free society!”
Hanging a millionaire landlord and snapping their neck in one second is a killing.
Letting a homeless person wither away over ten years until he dies is “he should have managed his finances better!”
Shooting an investment shark who owns a private hospital in the brain is a killing.
Denying a patient brain cancer treatment because they can’t afford it is “oh well, we can’t save everyone!”
Obligatory reminder that in the half XIX century workers in England lived in such horrible conditions that in one city (Machester or Liverpool iirc) average lifespan (icluding infant mortality etc.) for member of worker family was… 15 years, and this was taken from official statistic.
Fifteen.
Another connoisseur of The Condition of the Working Class in England, I see.
I cannot remember which city was which, either. But I remember that in the other city, the average lifespan was 17 or 19. So not much better!
– some obscure Amerikan author, idk
Reminds me of this quote from Engels on the topic of social murder.
“Baaaaaaah, you are free to find better job prole, learn to code or something” - average liberal