I know quite a few poor conservatives and even more rich commies...

So what. You people are the ones who say people are self-interested above all. If so then why the poor conservatives and rich socialists?

Jiří Wolker's father was a banker.
Karel Teige's father was a chief archiver of Prague.
S.K.Neumann's father was a representative.
Ivan Olbracht's father was an attorney.
Marie Pujmanová's father was an university professor.
Jaroslav Hašek's father was a high school math teacher.
Ivan Blatný's father was a writer.
Jindřich Hořejší studied at Sorbonne too.
Josef Hora studied law.
Julius Fučík studied philosophy.
Marie Majerová studied externally at Sorbonne.
Vladislav Vančura studied law and medicine.

I can't even think of any other Czech writer connected with Communist Party and none of those listed has a rock solid proletarian credentials. Marie Majerová comes close, though, thanks to her parents.

*Any other Czech interbellum writer, those are comparable with Čapek. Zápotocký had a father who was a tailor (but also a journalist and politician) for instance.

It's not just the class background of his family, but the lifestyle Čapek enjoyed. Čapek immersed himself in the snobbish interbellum world of intellectual and political elites. His wife was an actress at the National Theater. He hobnobbed with the President of Czechoslovakia (before Čapek turned on him). He was the leader of Czech penclub. He had absolutely no life experience whatsoever that gives him credibility on the affairs of the poor and the working class.

Most of those I listed had writing as their only serious occupation as well. They also formed the intellectual elite in Czechoslovakia, they took part in Devětsil...

Also, to tackle it at large, Marx, Engles, Lenin - not much proletarian credentials either. At least compared to those of Stalin and Mao, who were not the lowest of the low, but not upper class as well.

Not to say that being poor in order to be allowed to speak about the poor is pretty unusual when it comes to other areas of human existence. It's apparently the only condition one has to live through to get the permission.

And Čapek never turned on Masaryk. Should I take it as a measure of your knowledge of the are in that time?

"So what. You people are the ones who say people are self-interested above all. If so then why the poor conservatives and rich socialists?"
I promote self interest. Going to a public school I get into a lot of political debates as most people don't agree with me. However one kid at my school lives in a poor family and is conservative out of self interest. Both his parents are unemployed and do nothing but sit around all day letting employment insurance pay the bills. He is convinced that if they actually were forced to work to get paid they would start working and move up the social ladder. He is also the only Negro I know who is anti-Obama...

I know the niece of a former Canadian billionaire (at least I think he was a billionaire back in 2003, but could be wrong, what I do know was that he paid a $21 million bail), she votes green, is an extreme socialist thinking everyone should live a life style like the one she has in forest hill.(second richest neighborhood in Toronto)

People will and can do things that are not in their self-interest - both knowingly (think over-eating) and unknowingly (gambling until they are broke - convinced that it will make them rich on the next roll of the dice). As an American, I think one of the strongest pulls on our collective psyche is the rags to riches myth/story - the Horatio Alger story... Anyone can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" idea (think about the impossibility of that image for a moment). So - for generations - since the days of the robber barons and now (since 1970) the decline of the middle class and the ever expanding gap between rich and poor, the idea has held us enthralled. We want to keep playing the game because, like the Lotto, "you can't win if you don't play". A small handful pulling it off - maybe thousands who do it as first generation millionaires... inspire countless millions to keep the faith. The conservative base, other than the few truly rich (who do it out of clear self-interest - lower tax rates for the rich, less regulation) pull the lever (the ballot box lever) like they pull the lever of the one-armed bandit. Given a little more time, conservative policies, and hard work and they too will strike it rich. A sucker is born every minute. Socialist ideals/policies are not nearly as sexy - they don't promise than anyone will get stinking rich... equality of opportunity and a safety net? Yawn. Let's dream the big dream and vote for our conservative heros - the ones that tell us that we too could be rich and successful like them. (I just flashed on the late night get rich quick infomercials).

"Also, to tackle it at large, Marx, Engles, Lenin - not much proletarian credentials either."

Right, except Marx lived in extreme poverty virtually his entire adult life, living off the subsistence of money sent by Engels. Lenin's grandfather was a serf and his grandmother was illiterate. His father was only 7 years old when Lenin's grandfather died. Lenin's father Ilya had been to be raised and provided for by Ilya's 18 year old brother. Ilya could not afford university, because he was not of the nobility and did not receive a scholarship, so he had to raise money from relatives and through tutoring.

Of course the leadership is going to tend to be of means... this is true of all political persuasions. If your goal is to save the drowning - you're leader in the effort is probably not going to be one of the drowning... they are a bit distracted and busy. There are exceptions, of course (Cesar Chavez comes to mind - and even Obama who certainly started out from modest means).

Marx was poor because his expenses were larger than his income not because his income was low. Large house, schooling dor daughters, paying for doctors, piano lessons, maids... For someone who never had a proper wage job, being always an intellectual, he lived similarly to how some of us live today - being indebted as hell.

By the time Lenin was born, Ilya was already a respectable man, school inspector in Simbirsk gubernate, who got promoted to nobility when Vladimir was 12. Having a poor family before you're even born doesn't account for much first-hand experience.

"Of course the leadership is going to tend to be of means... this is true of all political persuasions. If your goal is to save the drowning - you're leader in the effort is probably not going to be one of the drowning... they are a bit distracted and busy. There are exceptions, of course (Cesar Chavez comes to mind - and even Obama who certainly started out from modest means). "

So, one can't speak about the poor, unless he's poor himself or when he's going to lead a country (no, Vladimir Ilyich, you can't speak for the poor, it's not sure you'll be in government!)... Is there some limit on how important the function has to be? Is there some other restriction I should know of? Wouldn't it be easier to acknowledge that this eligibility pretty much depends on what side you're standing?

In other words, is e.g. Durruti eligible or is he disqualified by being an anarchist despite working at railway as a child?

@ulytau, you're not understanding me. Not even close. I'm not even talking about "eligibility"... Though I guess I can answer your grammatically challenged question about someone (Durruti) being disqualified based on their background. The answer is: No... not in my universe.

House? By house you mean a two room apartment in London. His apartment was described by a Prussian say in the following terms: "He lives in one of the worst and cheapest neighborhoods in London. He occupies two rooms. There is not one clean or decent piece of furniture in either room. Everything is broken, tattered and torn, with thick dust over everything...". Several of his children died because no medicine could be afforded.

Lenin was expelled from a number of schools for radical activity. He essentially taught himself the law, as he got his degree in a little more than a year despite being expelled. Lenin was a lawyer for criminal defendants in Samara. He spent his life in jail or on in exile.

Obama is not some working-class hero, I doubt he shared bedroom with 4 relatives as a child like I did... and we weren't the poorest around either.

Sorry for using by instead of for, one is always learning.

@Ulytau, isn't that the opposite of what he said? Saying that the man trying to prevent people from drowning isn't drowning himself...

also Putin is right, the only reason Marx was advocating communism was because he was dirt poor.

Ulytau, you can make the claim that class doesn't matter when making social commentary, but you can't do so while making it seem like Marx and Lenin lived lives of luxury and took advantageous of their relatively privileged upbringing. Unlike Capek, they didn't live lavish lifestyles running around with the social and cultural elite of the day. Stop pretending otherwise.

Fasces, it's difficult to say, I don't understand what "you're leader" is supposed to represent. But I believe he said that a leader is usually better off, since people who are better off have free time that could be dedicated to helping others instead of ensuring their own survival.

The appartment in Soho was rented by Marx for 4 years - then his family moved to a small terraced house. When you can't afford medication for your children, you shouldn't pay a maid if you have your priorities right. Proletariat always lived for the family.

Concerning Lenin, he was an outlaw because he has decided to be an outlaw. The poor are poor without deciding to be poor. And being an outlaw is not the same as being poor, both groups are marginalized but they seldom share the same interests (if outlaws even have the same interests).

I'm not saying it's same thing as being poor. But the difference is Lenin lived a life of struggle, and struggled mightily for the benefit of those who are oppressed, while Capek was content with living the comfortable life of a bourgeois intellectual, ridiculing efforts to change the social order. That's the difference.

They didn't live lavish lifestyles like or his Czechoslovakian Communist contemporaries. Their primary income also wasn't hard manual labour as is the case (even a defining characteristic) among proletariat.

If Čapek was a superfluous man, he would not be such a vocal critic of Nazis, he would be simply spending money. As it stands, gestapo had his arrest planned several months before the Protektorat was even established.


We stumbled upon a clear problem, that of our irreconcilable views on Lenin's motivation. You say he struggled for the oppressed, I say he struggled for realization of his vision of a better world, which happened to be better mostly for him and his party. Since each of us obviously discussed something similar many times before, there's no point in discussing it once again. I hope you see it similarly.

Astonishingly, we all have the same opinions as several hours ago. You can't stand Čapek for opposing revolution, I stand by him precisely because he opposed revolution. Internet discussions are such a formative experience.

He lived in the slums of Soho from 1849 to 1856. Then he moved to Kentish Town to a small house, which he was still very poor. Where you got this "big house and maids" thing I have no idea. If he had maids why was his Dean Street flat so filthy? Every biography have every read has said that his family was unemployed and on the brink of starvation for twenty plus years.

The appartment your quote dealt with (28 Dean Street) was rented by Marx for 4 years at most. Yes, he lived in other dirty places in London before (like 64 Dean Street). I said he lived in a large house because it was a large house for that time and he lived there much longer than in those slums. And yes, he had only one maid, Helene Demuth, I was swayed by the plurals that came before it and that was wrong.

Large house for that time is too ambitious, I don't know the average size of houses in mid-19th century. House is not a proletarian slum, though.