Communism: Discussion on practicalities

[Nilokeras]

Who has said numerous times that I am against communism.

Who used to be a communist before I actually read Marx.

Who thinks that socialism is socially and economically impossible.

I can hear the 'it's human nature' argument chugging down the track from all the way over here

[South Reinkalistan]

Who has said numerous times that I am against communism.

Who used to be a communist before I actually read Marx.

Who thinks that socialism is socially and economically impossible.

I can hear the 'it's human nature' argument chugging down the track from all the way over here

"why yes humanity has an objective nature that has remained totally static throughout all the different conditions it has been subject to. i am incredibly intelligent."

it's painful

[Nilokeras]

I can hear the 'it's human nature' argument chugging down the track from all the way over here

"why yes humanity has an objective nature that has remained totally static throughout all the different conditions it has been subject to. i am incredibly intelligent."

it's painful

'I came to this conclusion after reading a pamphlet from 1848 and one part of a gigantic three part notoriously dense and difficult to read book of economic theory, which I feel gives me a complete picture of what Marxism is'

[South Reinkalistan]

"why yes humanity has an objective nature that has remained totally static throughout all the different conditions it has been subject to. i am incredibly intelligent."

it's painful

'I came to this conclusion after reading a pamphlet from 1848 and one part of a gigantic three part notoriously dense and difficult to read book of economic theory, which I feel gives me a complete picture of what Marxism is'

Why is it that the first thing people say they have read when they spout "I have read Marx, therefore I am authorised to tell you it's shit with no further elaboration" is always "The Manifesto, and a little bit of Capital".

I maintain that if you care enough to read Marx, just read most of the shit Engels puts out it's around fifty times easier to read. The only """essentials""" from Marx are the German Ideology and Rev/Counter Rev. imo

[Suriyanakhon]

Communism is bad. Why should I have to pay for other people's things? I don't want to pay for everyone's free healthcare, and I don't think the government should take more of my money. The US sinks billions into debt every year, and now they just want to take my money to pay for illegal immigrants healthcare.

oh come now, there were hardly any taxes in the Soviet Union.

Ngl a state guaranteed job and paid vacation sounds more and more appealing as I choose between being broke or stacking five different kinds of the same candy bar on the shelf.

[Kubra]

oh come now, there were hardly any taxes in the Soviet Union.

Ngl a state guaranteed job and paid vacation sounds more and more appealing as I choose between being broke or stacking five different kinds of the same candy bar on the shelf.

"guaranteed job" isn't a good thing tho.

[Nilokeras]

'I came to this conclusion after reading a pamphlet from 1848 and one part of a gigantic three part notoriously dense and difficult to read book of economic theory, which I feel gives me a complete picture of what Marxism is'

Why is it that the first thing people say they have read when they spout "I have read Marx, therefore I am authorised to tell you it's shit with no further elaboration" is always "The Manifesto, and a little bit of Capital".

I maintain that if you care enough to read Marx, just read most of the shit Engels puts out it's around fifty times easier to read. The only """essentials""" from Marx are the German Ideology and Rev/Counter Rev. imo

I mean it's probably as simple as asking 'what are the books on Marxism/by Marx that show up first when you google it'. They do that, download the pdf and they get hit in the face by Capital and decide it's all nonsense because of the ten pages on the production of coats. Or read a pamphlet written before Marxism was a thing and decide that's all they need.

[Cerbia]

I define liberal democracy as a democratic regime that protects property rights, civil rights, and minority rights. If it doesn't do that, then it isn't a liberal democracy in a meaningful way.

Which makes your 'true liberal democracy' criteria very hard to meet in the real world.

I'm not making a "no true blablabla" argument. No country protects those rights perfectly, but I'd say there's progress when minorities in Bulgaria (say) go from getting forcibly sterilized under communism to having considerable rights under liberal democracy.

Ah here we're smacking into that wall of ideology in your head - the failure of actual democracies is down to a flaw in their implementation, of not meeting that ideal, rather than a problem with the basis of the concept itself.

Well ok, so then I am allowed to say that mass murder and ethnic cleansing are essential to communism? What about Vuvuzela? My point is that bad things are (oppression) happening. Liberal democracy is a better system to regulate such bad things than what the USSR and China have/had.

And? Does doing that become okay because the Soviet Union and China do it?

No.

[Blargoblarg]

Well, this is a vast topic, and it's hard to answer everything, but I'll try to give a few points (full disclaimer : I'm myself a card-carrying member of the French Communist Party, but I don't pretend to speak for all communists or even all from PCF).

First about the "end goal", the stateless, classless society.

I agree it's kinda fuzzy - but that's on purpose. Because we are historical materialists, and we believe societies are constrained by the material conditions of existence. The society at the age of Internet and mass production can't be the same than the one during the middle ages, and the future society with AI and nanotech and who-knows-what will likely be even more different. But also because we can't decide for future generations. The transition from capitalism to communism will take time, and while we are driven by values, principles and broad objectives, we can't decide for everyone, even less for those yet-to-be-born (or currently in their infancy).

But a classless, stateless society doesn't mean a vacuum of power. It means some form of direct or participative democracy, where decisions are taken collectively by people affected by the decision. The exact implementation can take many shapes, not necessarily exclusive - frequent online voting, pyramidal council systems, self-organisation at local level, ... the idea of the state "withering away" is that when people are more directly involved in decision-making, and that democratic decision-making process spreads to most aspects of social life (including organization of workplaces, ...) the distinction between "state" and the rest of society disappears.

As for "each person according to his need" it's a broad principle, the "needs" are indeed not exactly defined. But it means things people with disabilities being allocated resources to compensate their disability. It means a family with children should be allowed to get a bigger house/flat. It means sick people should always receive the best possible healthcare. How to allocate resources is a complicated issue, but I believe we can do much better than the capitalist free market system with a set of universal rights (universal healthcare, right to decent housing and food, access to broadband and clean water, ...), collective decisions of broad priorities, and then a mix of cybernetic planning and free market of cooperatives for the more consumer-oriented goods and services.

As for the implementation, the main issue to me is how to build "socialism" or "communism" while facing the hostility of the capitalists. Paris' Commune tried to build a democratic, participative, non-violent form of socialism (they even burned the guillotine, ...). They were slaughtered during the Bloody Week. Spanish Republicans tried a democratic road to socialism - they got Franco, supported by Hitler, while the "democratic" countries denied them any help. Allende tried a democratic road towards socialism - he faced massive destabilization and sabotage from the CIA and was killed in a military coup. Kurds in Rojava tried to implement a democratic form of socialism, they got bombed and invaded by Erdogan while USA and EU turned a blind eye.

That's the level of hostility communists or socialists will face - capitalists pretend they like democracy and non-violence when they are in power, but the day they lose it, they become ruthless and without any ethical constraints. How do we manage to defend the Revolution against such reckless hostility, without using methods that will turn us into tyranny ? I don't have any real answer to that question - and yet it's the crucial one. I can only say we should try, to the best of our abilities, to move towards communism, ready to defend ourselves from the violence of the counter-revolution, but careful to not lose our soul in the process.

I definitely think a stateless, classless society is ideal. I think the biggest problem is how we get there, since capitalists have in the past and almost certainly will in the future use violence to stop us from getting there. That, and of course lots of people around the world have been propagandized into thinking that socialism and communism are evil, and a lot of capitalists don't even seem to know what those words mean; they're just a generic boogeyman to many people.

[Nilokeras]

I'm not making a "no true blablabla" argument. No country protects those rights perfectly, but I'd say there's progress when minorities in Bulgaria (say) go from getting forcibly sterilized under communism to having considerable rights under liberal democracy.

Groups like First Nations women are still getting forcibly sterilized today in Canada. Those liberties are not universal, they are gradated through racial and class hierarchies.

Well ok, so then I am allowed to say that mass murder and ethnic cleansing are essential to communism? What about Vuvuzela?

Are they essential?

My point is that bad things are (oppression) happening. Liberal democracy is a better system to regulate such bad things than what the USSR and China have/had.

And my point is that the only reason why you have the impression that liberal democracies are better at preserving property or whatever is that they have already completed the same processes of mass murders and are sitting atop a neat pile of bones. Or are neatly exporting their mass murder to the Third World.

[Just-An-Illusion]

While I dislike capitalism... I don't fully trust communism to solve the world's problems.

[Suriyanakhon]

The non-authoritarian nature of modern liberal democracies is largely a fantasy tbh. The United States has mass domestic spying, has assassinated its own citizens, at least a few police departments have used black sites, the Commerce Clause is used to grant the Federal Government control over nearly every aspect of life, social credit exists except the market controls it instead of the government (which is arguably even worse) etc etc. Pretty much everything people fear from places like China is already happening in the west or has happened in the past.

This, liberal democracies rely on brutal exploitation of Third World workers in order to maintain the facade of being peaceful and civilized.

[Kowani]

oh come now, there were hardly any taxes in the Soviet Union.

Ngl a state guaranteed job and paid vacation sounds more and more appealing as I choose between being broke or stacking five different kinds of the same candy bar on the shelf.

but think of all the oompa-loompas working to make that candy bar!

[Atheris]

While I dislike capitalism... I don't fully trust communism to solve the world's problems.

I mean, yeah, this. Capitalism sucks and I hate it but I don't feel like communism or socialism is the answer. It may solve some issues but it'll inadvertently create more. This is an issue with almost every political system that claims to solve problems, be they revolutionary - communism, syndicalism, fascism - or reactionary - neoconservatism, traditionalism, modern nationalist populism - or something in between. I don't think there's ever been an ideology yet that's been created or even theorized that could perfectly solve the world's problems and it likely never will be. We can certainly try our hardest to get there, but at the moment, I feel like the best way to guarantee a future for humanity is social democratic regulated capitalism, not socialism, communism, anarchism, corporatism, libertarianism, or whatever else.

[Nilokeras]

I mean, yeah, this. Capitalism sucks and I hate it but I don't feel like communism or socialism is the answer. It may solve some issues but it'll inadvertently create more. This is an issue with almost every political system that claims to solve problems, be they revolutionary - communism, syndicalism, fascism - or reactionary - neoconservatism, traditionalism, modern nationalist populism - or something in between. I don't think there's ever been an ideology yet that's been created or even theorized that could perfectly solve the world's problems and it likely never will be.

Ah, instead of a paen to human nature we have a collapsed political imagination that apparently tried and failed to grapple with Marxism and instead retreated into the nihilistic security blanket that is the status quo.

[Nevertopia]

i think the main issue with communism is its ultimately utopian in nature. It requires an infinite amount of good will for an entire nation to surrender all of its economic freedom to the government and for that government not then use the transfer of wealth to turn themselves in power as the next bourgeoisie. In reality this is what happens when communism is tried and how it fails every time. The only scenario where there would be ZERO corruption ABSOLUTELY during and in the forseeable future of a communism government to redistribute wealth fairly is if the society in question was already utopian to begin with.

The fundamental flaw of communism is it believes that all evils reside with the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat does not have the capacity to oppress itself, and thats simply not true, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Kowani]

i think the main issue with communism is its ultimately utopian in nature. It requires an infinite amount of good will for an entire nation to surrender all of its economic freedom to the government and for that government not then use the transfer of wealth to turn themselves in power as the next bourgeoisie. In reality this is what happens when communism is tried and how it fails every time. The only scenario where there would be ZERO corruption ABSOLUTELY during and in the forseeable future of a communism government to redistribute wealth fairly is if the society in question was already utopian to begin with.

The fundamental flaw of communism is it believes that all evils reside with the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat does not have the capacity to oppress itself, and thats simply not true, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

[Nilokeras]

i think the main issue with communism is its ultimately utopian in nature. It requires an infinite amount of good will for an entire nation to surrender all of its economic freedom to the government and for that government not then use the transfer of wealth to turn themselves in power as the next bourgeoisie. In reality this is what happens when communism is tried and how it fails every time. The only scenario where there would be ZERO corruption ABSOLUTELY during and in the forseeable future of a communism government to redistribute wealth fairly is if the society in question was already utopian to begin with.

The fundamental flaw of communism is it believes that all evils reside with the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat does not have the capacity to oppress itself, and thats simply not true, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

'the issue with communism is...'

*rolls dice*

'women be shopping'

[Nevertopia]

i think the main issue with communism is its ultimately utopian in nature. It requires an infinite amount of good will for an entire nation to surrender all of its economic freedom to the government and for that government not then use the transfer of wealth to turn themselves in power as the next bourgeoisie. In reality this is what happens when communism is tried and how it fails every time. The only scenario where there would be ZERO corruption ABSOLUTELY during and in the forseeable future of a communism government to redistribute wealth fairly is if the society in question was already utopian to begin with.

The fundamental flaw of communism is it believes that all evils reside with the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat does not have the capacity to oppress itself, and thats simply not true, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

except the whole concept of communism is to retake the means of production from the bourgeoisie and im right. The issue is when the proletariats do gain the supposed means of production they just become the new oppressors. Think about it, do you really think the proletariats are immune to being corrupted and hording power once an elite few are in power?

[Washington Resistance Army]

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

'the issue with communism is...'

*rolls dice*

'women be shopping'

That's a very valid point though!

[Nevertopia]

'the issue with communism is...'

*rolls dice*

'women be shopping'

That's a very valid point though!

ty! its like they dont even know what they believe in anymore.

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

except the whole concept of communism is to retake the means of production from the bourgeoisie and im right. The issue is when the proletariats do gain the supposed means of production they just become the new oppressors. Think about it, do you really think the proletariats are immune to being corrupted and hording power once an elite few are in power?

That's an issue with how you get there, then. In modern times, the ML movement isn't so in vogue.

[South Reinkalistan]

anytime anyone says "the issue with communism is", there is a 90% chance that whatever they describe will have nothing to do with communism

except the whole concept of communism is to retake the means of production from the bourgeoisie and im right. The issue is when the proletariats do gain the supposed means of production they just become the new oppressors. Think about it, do you really think the proletariats are immune to being corrupted and hording power once an elite few are in power?

The "proletariat" is defined as the principally "propertyless" class who labour for an employer and have value extracted from them.

"The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century." t. Engels' Principles of Communism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm)

Therefore, this working class, in this sense do not bear upon themselves, as a class, the capacity for oppression; their entire identity is formulated around the relations of oppression which principally result in capitalism. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is not "communism"; it is an oppressive - a RIGHTFULLY oppressive - state apparatus for the purpose of destroying the capitalist class. In doing so, it obliterates the proletariat as a category as well, ushering in the process of the development of socialism, communism and et cetera.

The oppressors you so describe were not a "corrupted proletariat", for that is impossible to found upon a material basis; it was a bureaucracy emerged from a proletarian state which was encircled and starved by a violently reactionary imperialist bloc. Or, to put it simply, the international conditions upon which you find the foundation of total proletarian rule began to collapse and there emerged apparatchiks instead.

You are being incorrect here. The "whole concept of communism" is too complex, if you look at it from a Marxist analysis, to summarise in one sentence as you do; it is a system of analyses and critiques, you can't just reduce your refutal of it to any one thing. That is something one would do were they arrogant and presumptuous. The proletariat themselves cannot become the oppressors because their style of labour and self-sustenance is one predicated upon their own labour, and their historical purpose is self-obliteration as a class. Fundamentally you present just another "human nature" "argument" barely dressed as something presentable.

[Ayytaly]

Communism should embrace religion, not persecute it. Its stance on atheism and materialism is exactly the core belief of unregulated capitalism.

Communism and liberalism both stem from the Enlightenment, so they do have a few common philosophical considerations. But persecution of religion isn't something inherent to "communism", it's more of a twist added by authoritarian forms of it, and mostly because the hierarchy of religions opposed religion. Marx view of religion is more that it'll disappear by itself once the material conditions making it a social necessity are no longer here, not that we should actively strive to fight it. « Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. »

That material being capital, correct?

And there are forms of "communism" that do embrace religion, Liberation Theology for example. I'm myself a rationalist and strongly atheist, I believe religion is an obsolete relic of bygone age of ignorance, but I do not want to actively fight it, and I'm all fine with allying myself with Liberation Theology or other progressive currents within religions.

I disagree. In modern times, the biggest ignorants are the ones who want to eliminate religion. Usually junkies, edgy teens, and OnlyFans users selling nudes for a whopping $500 per shot. I should also point out that the latter also protested against income tax a few years ago. Granted, it was more of a troll job (and a hilarious one at that), but it was the perfect microcosm of unregulated capitalism: Atheistic, materialist, and selfish.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Communism should embrace religion.

That's how you get the cult of personality.

Joseph Stalin: Vampire Hunter.

He drove all the vampires out of the USSR.