If you are a communist, how do you identify yourself?

[Thermodolia]

Private property will still stay. And no while you may define private property as separate from ownership of a home I don't. It's all private property my house, my land, my shit and my truck are private property

"Hey, I'm going to ignore sociological and economic definitions because my personal definition is sooooooooooo much better and more educated."
Those are personal property, no Socialist wants to seize that, no worry.

No not all. Many many people differ on what is private property. Many liberal economists say that private property is anything you own while socialist economists say that private property has to do with production while personal property is things ya own. So I'm not ignoring anything as there's no true consensus on the matter.

[Kibbutz Unions]

"Hey, I'm going to ignore sociological and economic definitions because my personal definition is sooooooooooo much better and more educated."
Those are personal property, no Socialist wants to seize that, no worry.

No not all. Many many people differ on what is private property. Many liberal economists say that private property is anything you own while socialist economists say that private property has to do with production while personal property is things ya own. So I'm not ignoring anything as there's no true consensus on the matter.

But we are dealing with the Socialist definition, this is a communist thread and we argued about the concept of "abolishing private property", you said you didn't want to give up your private property then I noted that nothing that you actually own is private property by that definition, then you argue with me that actually what you own is private property and not personal property indicating that you still think, under this context, that they are the same.
Come on, be fair- using semantics as an argument is just misdirection and misleading.

[Democratic Communist Federation]

IMO, the elimination of private property refers to a successful revolution against the bourgeoisie. At that point, the property of capitalists is turned over to the proletariat. The details of the coöperative or communist system which will then begin to develop, through stages, are left to the future.

One of the major elements of scientific socialism, a term coined by Engels, is that utopian schemes or scenarios are of no use. People, using their agency, will respond to whatever conditions exist in the future.

[RARE BASED LAND]

You are borrowing an electronic device to participate on this forum then? You are at a public library? If you own an electronic device that gives you access to the internet it is your private property, and it was likely produced by a private company that is not a co-op.

No, it is personal property, not private property
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_ ... e_property

Come on, you could at the very least check before making an abortive argument.

Your link says "In political/economic theory, notably socialist, Marxist, and most anarchist philosophies, the distinction between private and personal property is extremely important. Which items of property constitute which is open to debate. In some philosophies, such as capitalism, private and personal property are considered to be exactly equivalent."

I internet searched, I googled, I whipped out my Business Law notes about real property and personal property. I could not find anything to suggest to me as an indisputable fact that personal property and private property are mutually exclusive.
"The ownership of tangible and intangible goods by an individual who has exclusive rights over it. The transfer of a private property can take place only by the owner’s consent or through a sale or through its presentation as a gift."

Law Dictionary: What is PRIVATE PROPERTY? definition of PRIVATE PROPERTY (Black's Law Dictionary)
http://www.businessdictionary.com/defin ... perty.html
http://thelawdictionary.org/private-property/

If your phone or computer is not owned by the public sector, the state, or some kind of government entity then perhaps it is owned privately.

Regardless, pretending Marxism is innocuous and denying what caused the deaths of tens of millions of people is more problematic than being confused about the definition of private property. Even if you will not expressly acknowledge the relationship Marxist ideology has with the Holodomor, Soviet famine, and dekulakization, literate people who utilize google to investigate the subject will likely conclude that the Holodomor and Soviet famine was not caused by "rapid industrialization". Industrialization in developed capitalist nations did not produce genocidal famine. You know that Marxism has an oppressive and genocidal history, you are just too attached to the ideology to admit it, even when the deaths caused by communism are thoroughly cited and undeniable you still attempt to concoct a weak illusion of a coherent defense.

[Trotskylvania]

Calling the USSR, Yugoslavia, and China socialist is just wrong. Socialist tendencies yes, socialist no.

China is indeed more controversial BUT:
In both the USSR and Yugoslavia the means of production were controlled either by the workers directly through cooperatives and worker's councils or indirectly through the vanguard party.
If that's not Socialism what is??

Except it wasn't.

The Soviet Union was a company town writ-large. The essential features of capitalism continued to persist; wagedom, commodity production, and exchange-value were the organizing form of economic activity. An exploitative ruling class appropriated surplus value. The state served as the universal capitalist and landlord. The Soviet form failed to even provide for the managed self-exploitation of the cooperative model; it was pure capitalism unrestrained by any authentic collective control of production.

[Thercia]

I always wonder; why is it Communists seem to dive themselves among 20 different fact when, as a unified ideology, this difference doesn't matter as none possess any power? I suppose you can be a Cuban or Chinese "communist" but I'm sure we all know China barely holds the pretense of Communism at this point, and Cuba has no outside power at all.

So why divide yourselves when the primary point should be first obtaining some degree of power?

[Risottia]

Bolsheviks are supposed to be internationalists. Who isn't an internationalist but claims to be a communist is a deviationist.
Off to Siberia with the deviationists. On foot!

By the way, libertarian communist here. If I weren't such a soft-hearted libertarian, I'd be entrusting the En-Be deviationists directly to the Completely Voluntary Brigade for the Liquidation of Areas Affected by Totally Manageable Issues with Heavy Metals Named after Vladimir Ilich Lenin.

I had no idea you were a communist haha

bar the flag of course

I guess I'm a rather weird sort of one. The Party comrades used to be rather puzzled because they couldn't fit me in any established current.

[Trotskylvania]

Regardless, pretending Marxism is innocuous and denying what caused the deaths of tens of millions of people is more problematic than being confused about the definition of private property. Even if you will not expressly acknowledge the relationship Marxist ideology has with the Holodomor, Soviet famine, and dekulakization, literate people who utilize google to investigate the subject will likely conclude that the Holodomor and Soviet famine was not caused by "rapid industrialization". Industrialization in developed capitalist nations did not produce genocidal famine. You know that Marxism has an oppressive and genocidal history, you are just too attached to the ideology to admit it, even when the deaths caused by communism are thoroughly cited and undeniable you still attempt to concoct a weak illusion of a coherent defense.

Not to defend tankie hellholes, but claiming that capitalism hasn't caused mass death requires utter ignorance about history.

Only the dead can know peace from this ideology.

See my previous post in this thread for why the Bolshevik Revolution was a failed revolution that enforced a radical, intense form of capitalist relations at the barrel of a gun.

But the history of modern industrialization is a history written in violence and blood. From the Enclosures in early modern Europe, which saw millions dispossessed from traditional subsistence modes of production to make way for commodity production, to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to the millions who died corralled into cities choking with smog, chewed up by dark satanic mills, or put into an early grave by the disease, malnutrition and squalor in the booming capitalist towns, to the millions who died in the legacy of colonialism, such as during the Irish Potato Famine, or the numerous famines caused by the policies of the British Raj in India; the modern opulence you enjoy is built on a mountain of skulls.

[Bakery Hill]

I had no idea you were a communist haha

bar the flag of course

I guess I'm a rather weird sort of one. The Party comrades used to be rather puzzled because they couldn't fit me in any established current.

What party were you in? And why so? What are your opinions?

[Democratic Communist Federation]

Anyone who takes revolution seriously can't legitimately be opposed to violence. Capitalists aren't going to give up their power and resources without a struggle.

Of course, recognizing the inevitability of violence and advocating it are two different animals.

[Risottia]

..., private and personal property are considered to be exactly equivalent."

I internet searched, I googled, I whipped out my Business Law notes about real property and personal property. I could not find anything to suggest to me as an indisputable fact that personal property and private property are mutually exclusive.
[i]"The ownership of tangible and intangible goods by an individual who has exclusive rights over it. The transfer of a private property can take place only by the owner’s consent or through a sale or through its presentation as a gift." ...

Then by your definition private property doesn't exist, as eminent domain, bankruptcy proceedings, and requisition or unauthorized use in emergency case by the government or even by a physical person do exist.

Or maybe your "Business Law notes" aren't very accurate to begin with.

Anyway, the distinction that is often made in Marxist theory is that private property is applied to items, structures and infrastructures that are used to produce goods as part of one's economical activity, while personal property isn't aimed at economical activity. Example: the screw driver I use to fix my home computer is personal property. An identical screwdriver used by a shop owner to fix a customer's computer is private property (of a mean of non-mass production). A third identical screwdriver owned by Intel to fix their chip assembly line is private property (of a mean of mass production). Main use matters.

[Trotskylvania]

I always wonder; why is it Communists seem to dive themselves among 20 different fact when, as a unified ideology, this difference doesn't matter as none possess any power? I suppose you can be a Cuban or Chinese "communist" but I'm sure we all know China barely holds the pretense of Communism at this point, and Cuba has no outside power at all.

So why divide yourselves when the primary point should be first obtaining some degree of power?

Because these aren't questions that can just be brushed aside.

The history of the communist movement has shown what happens when adventurists, utopians, and opportunists call the shots. Adventurists like Lenin lead ill-fated workers revolutions in underdeveloped countries, and quite predictably fail to have the most minimal material preconditions for any sort of socialist program. They often turn on the very workers who propelled them into power int he first place in order to maintain their regimes. The utopians lead workers into condescending schemes that fail to actually end exploitation. And the opportunists lead to self-described workers' parties managing the excesses of capitalism for the capitalists, and ultimately fail at that in the end. Their social democratic welfare states are in decline the world over for a reason: if you leave the capitalist ruling class intact, they will undo anything that interferes with their class interest.

These are not petty concerns, Most communists are unfortunately deeply mistaken about the doctrine they think they support. They think that revolutions are made by ideologies, and so if people just accept the right ideology and believe the right way, then all will be right in the end. Except this is romantic idealism, not scientific socialism. People make revolutions, usually spontaneously.

If communists keep saying that the way forward is making shrines to dead dictators, chanting dumb slogans, and going balls deep on youthful rebellion and student activism, it is little wonder that actual workers will have no interest. Because the "communism" they describe Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, Hoxhaist Albania, etc., is just capitalism with extra steps and more cults of personality. Workers aren't dumb, they know they're being exploited very keenly. Trying to sell them on a different kind of alienation and exploitation is going to be a no sell.

[Risottia]

I guess I'm a rather weird sort of one. The Party comrades used to be rather puzzled because they couldn't fit me in any established current.

What party were you in? And why so? What are your opinions?

Partito dei Comunisti Italiani. To support the first Prodi cabinet from a left-wing point of view.
As for my opinions, will write down something later when I'm in front of an actual keyboard (I hate touchscreens).

[Kubra]

What party were you in? And why so? What are your opinions?

Partito dei Comunisti Italiani. To support the first Prodi cabinet from a left-wing point of view.
As for my opinions, will write down something later when I'm in front of an actual keyboard (I hate touchscreens).

Oh man I always forget you're italian

[Eulenberg]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

[Bakery Hill]

What party were you in? And why so? What are your opinions?

Partito dei Comunisti Italiani. To support the first Prodi cabinet from a left-wing point of view.
As for my opinions, will write down something later when I'm in front of an actual keyboard (I hate touchscreens).

I'd like to read them.

[Trotskylvania]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

If there was ever an existence more unnecessary than Enver Hoxha's, it probably never existed to begin with.

Hoxha is just Stalinism for people with bunker fetishes.

[Bakery Hill]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

tfw the leaders of the German proletariat are Liebknecht, Thalmann and Aust but no Luxemburg

[Bakery Hill]

Hoxha is just Stalinism for people with bunker fetishes.

I don't see a problem here.

[Kubra]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

If there was ever an existence more unnecessary than Enver Hoxha's, it probably never existed to begin with.

Hoxha is just Stalinism for people with bunker fetishes.

Well I mean I don't know why they stopped making bunkers
I'd get pass-out drunk in an hour if there was a bunker themed pub in Albania

[Stalliongrad and Far-Eastern Territories]

Rosa all the way. The workers' revolution must be instigated by the workers.

[Democratic Communist Federation]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

The polling app is unfortunately limited to 10 responses. However, Hoxha, to my knowledge, did not distance himself from Stalin.

[Stalliongrad and Far-Eastern Territories]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

The polling app is unfortunately limited to 10 responses. However, Hoxha, to my knowledge, did not distance himself from Stalin.

Hoxha was pretty much Stalin on crack, as far as I'm concerned. The guy built so many bunkers that Albania couldn't effectively maintain its roads, for god's sake.

[Democratic Communist Federation]

Rosa all the way. The workers' revolution must be instigated by the workers.

for my fellow Luxemburgist.

[Nazbol Pudding Club]

tfw there's Lukács and Gramsci but no Enver Hoxha?

tfw the leaders of the German proletariat are Liebknecht, Thalmann and Aust but no Luxemburg

I hired some far-right hackers to infiltrate the server and purge her from the list.

*collaborationist socdem theme music plays*