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Notes -
'Serving himself' is not a clear category. Cain was obviously self-motivated in committing the murder, but he was not benefitting himself in committing the murder. The phrase 'serving himself' could cover either.
To recap a little, my position is:
Firstly, it does not make sense to describe the murder of Abel as an act of 'redistribution', or as 'socialism' in any meaningful sense. No material goods nor the distribution thereof were involved. Cain did not believe that Abel was 'stealing' anything, or that Abel's possessions were obtained unjustly. The motive for Cain's murder was envy. He acted out of hatred. Abel did well, Cain did poorly, and out of resentment Cain murdered his brother and then sought to pretend otherwise.
Secondly, Cain's motive had nothing to do with 'self-preservation'. No defense of Cain's actions along those lines is viable. Cain was not defending himself or his interests, or protecting his posterity, or making the evolutionarily optimal decision. Abel's life in no way threatened any of those things.
Congratulations - this is correct. Abel did better than Cain, and Cain felt envious, angry, and wrathful. But of course the point is that Cain was wrong to feel that way. Feelings are not self-justifying. See Jonah chapter 4. God's repeated question to Jonah is, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
So what is the point of this sophistry about redistribution, socialism, self-preservation, or evolution? The first murder was not about any of those things. Okay, I understand that now you are retreating to a more subtle point - that the psychological tendencies that underlie and motivate Cain's murder are also present in the motivations for socialist politics today. But 1) I think you should have made that point more clearly above, 2) that argument that socialism is based on envy is commonplace in conservative politics and you do not need to drag in Cain and Abel to make that point, and 3) any political position, socialism included, is held by an immense number of people for an immense number of reasons, it's impossible to fully peer into any individual's heart, and human motives are always irreducibly mixed. Envy, pride, resentment, etc., are ubiquitous and present among the adherents of pretty much every political creed imaginable.
Bringing up Cain is just a combination of bad biblical exegesis and bad political analysis. You were responding to Pongalh's correct point that socialists believe that natural resources are a kind of common heritage that should not be privately owned with a non sequitur about Cain and Abel. I think you should try to speak more clearly.
I mean, there's no retreat; that's what I meant in the first place, and why I opened with it.
While that's to a point the kind of socialism we were talking about, I notice there's something a bit more subtle in there that 'mere' envy doesn't match.
(There is specifically a "this exact attitude" in here that doesn't quite cleanly fit your buckets.)
Sure they are, from the human-only perspective.
But I'm not going to waste more time trying to explain that concept to you since, well, you clearly stopped reading about halfway through.
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