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Post #161
I can't exactly take communism too seriously as an ideaology to pick up in this day and age simply because Marx's ideal soceity was simply done as a direct response to extreme capitalism, which was rampant during his time (the industrial revolution). Child labor, massive unregulated working conditions, terrible pay, etc. EVERY country basically treated industry like China. And keep in mind this was before the age of globalization, so generally the goods you produced in your country were exclusive to your country.
Marx's communism was a critique of this. He predicted that and endless cycle of depressions and recessions would happen in capitalist societies, causing more supply than demand since the working class is exploited for their wages and therefore cannot buy the goods that fuel the economy (which they were at the time in some ways), which causes more depressions until the conditions are so poor that a "worker's revolution" takes place, and a capitalist society becomes a communist society.
This never happened. Capitalism didn't fall at the height of the industrial revolution. Nevermind the issue that Marx's ideology focuses too much on the working class and "production of goods" versus anything else (there's not much support for creative fields, science/technology, etc in communism, since it's highest appeal is twoards labor). Capitalism has never seen communist uprisings - in fact the only areas where it happened, were in feudal countries where the governing bodies were weak.
Lenin tried to explain this by stating that Imperialism caused capitalist socieites to give themselves a "barrier" between failure because they could open up new markets in colonies, have extremely cheap labor in colonies, etc.
But we've since left the age of Imperialism and capitalism still hasn't failed. Instead, the next step in society was globalization, something that wasn't possible in "communism's time", and in my opinion is why Communism and Marxism as ideaologies are only relevant to gain understanding into the historical situation of the time they were concepted. I'd be willing to bet that if marx was alive during the age of globalization, there would be no communist manifesto. Ironically enough, the only countries that still operate in the conditions that Marx was trying to fight against and prevent are ones that have adopted "psudo-communism", like China. Yes, I know, China isn't real communism. But it's kind of funny how the only countries on earth anymore that have working conditions like in the industrial revolution that inspired Marx to write what he did are all countries that have adopted governments inspired by Marx's ideologies. Certainly not Marx's fault, no. But it's pretty obvious that Capitalism wasn't the direct cause and root of all that injustice that Marx critiqued.
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Yes, Marxism is most definitively outdated. But other forms of socialism might not be. A personally just think we need less corporations and more cooperatives.
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i think its important for people to understand that corporations only become a threat to nations when they have influence in politics. this isnt part of capitalism or free markets by any means, and its disappointing when people confuse it with such.
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more than just politics, I think they just exploit workers. Especially with smaller businesses, cooperatives are the way to go in my mind.
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i don't know why i have to keep saying this, marx didn't have any conception of an ideal society.
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Even if you have 5 partys in a communist or socialist society, it's all
the same. Communism is a totalitarian ideology not to forget that.
There is no separation of powers (beetween society, politics and economics) in such
a society.
There the analogy to other totalitarian ideologies for example religions or National Socialism and Fascist ideologies takes effect.
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communism has absolutely nothing to do with totalitarianism.
it's perfectly possible to be both capitalist and totalitarianist.
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You do not understand what a totalitarian ideology is at all.
And by the way there is no ideology that is called "Capitalism",
it is word orginally created by marx as a scientific term to describe
19th century industrial society, nowadays inflationary (miss/over)used as a pejorative combat term
to sometimes only describe America othertimes the whole western society,
used by leftists, used by fascists, used by idiots in general - if not in the context of Marx.
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i understand it very clearly and it has nothing to do with communism or capitalism.
to say communism is either utopian or totalitarian is completely false. first of all marxist communism is anti-utopian, communism is also anti-totalitarian in itself considering totalitarianism requires a state which communism lacks.
communism is a stateless ideology.
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by that logic, all government is totalitarian. The powers of society, politics, and economics aren't separated in America, so I guess we are a totalitarian regime. Gosh, I thought only single party governments could be totalitarian.
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single party governments don't have to be totalitarian either.
china is more authoritarian than totalitarian.
a small but notable difference.
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what is the difference?
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totalitarian regimes attempt to control every aspect of the country right down to the single detail.
authoritarian regimes are more about political power, for instance China is fairly capitalistic and you won't get in trouble with the government till you start questioning them.
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I think to say it's not part of capitalism is a stretch. Corporate capitalism is a huge part of capitalism. But yeah it's definitely not a part of a true free market (but it is a part of "The Free Market"). You have to be careful with terminology because it's misused so much to justify corporate power.
Edited:
Well to be fair, all states are totalitarian.
The monopoly on violence is one of the most totalitarian features you can get. The fact our government gives us a few more liberties than you'd expect from a totalitarian regime is of little consequence, when they still hold the monopoly on violence.
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Once again I laugh at you. It's both funny and scary to see a youngster like you, so naive and certain about an ideology that has failed every time it has been adapted by a society. It's obvious that you don't know anything about free markets, corporations or the basic psychological driving forces that are the complete base for our current prosperity. Therefore I advise you to listen carefully now.
The company owners and CEOs are surely earning a lot of money, but don't forget that they in return are providing people with goods and services for a reasonable price due to competition between corporations. Such competition would never possibly exist in a society where the government is in possession of all the companies. The company owners are taking a lot of risk when creating a company and placing their money in it. People don't take such risk if they don't have anything to win by doing so.
Profit is an extremely strong driving force, and when a society uses it in the right way, it encourages people to work, which in return creates a more prosperous society which can afford a strong welfare.
Now, you're right about the fact that I don't know much about your specific form of socialism. What I know though is that when you take away the basic driving forces for people to start businesses and thereby create jobs, compete with each other, take risks, you are on a very dangerous road.
My advise to you is to accept the world as it is and apply for a job instead of keep whining about your extremely Utopian socialism that might sound relatively nice on paper, but which would result in a miserable fiscal situation in reality.
I hope you are aware of that an extreme majority of all economists despite socialism and are very clear about its terrible consequences. You might throw up some stupid conspiracy theory about how these economists are "working for the establishment and all the big cooperations", but for the rest of us who believe they are professional people with a deep knowledge about economics and with an interest of helping people around them, we respect their hard work and their experience.
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The ideology of the Soviet Union was nothing like most people who categorise themselves as socialists/communists/anarchists. Forgot what socialism is for a minute. The views of people like myself and (possibly) Kakistocrat are fucking nothing like the soviet union. Arguing over what these ideologies fundamentally are is irrelevant and just arguing over splitting hairs.
The Soviet Union tried to monopolise the legitimate use of physical coercion (like all states do) which was morally abhorrent. They also tried to enforce state capitalism which is even more fascist than corporatism is today. You can argue over what socialism or communism or marxism is but at the end of the day it's just avoiding the important question that needs to be addressed (and its addressing will solve the majority of political problems imo): is the state legitimate in monopolising the legitimate use of physical violence?
Economists are by and large very detached from the moral reality of the world to the point I really question their validity on a massive level. (Also why would you say 'working for the establishment and all the big cooperations'? Us "lefties" (I fucking hate the right/left dichotomy it's fucking retarded) are by and large very pro-cooperative. Do you mean corporations?)
Edited:
This is one of the most fucking retarded (and most overused) anti-socialism arguments I have ever heard. If anything freedom from state coercion would open up every single individual to explore their own entrepreneurship without some state-backed corporate cunt dicking all over you.
Statelessness would be very good for incentivising competition and it's fucking ridiculous that such an idea has been propagated so much.
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It is, the most condescending man in the world.
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I want the freedom and choice to do what I want to do with my money.
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I hate these threads.
"Let's have a bunch of uninformed teenagers without unbiased sources or any real comprehension of the issues regarding both systems debate one of the most complex questions in modern history only to have the entire thread derail as a flaming pile of shit!"
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oh you really showed us with that informed comprehensive response!!
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Why are you even posting in this if you hate it so bad? I made this thread to hear other peoples answers, since many are the "little bit of both" and someone is "Only Capitalism" and vice versa...
People are different, and people have different opinions
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That's too be debated in another thread. I meant Totalitarian from a statists point of view.Well to be fair, all states are totalitarian.
The monopoly on violence is one of the most totalitarian features you can get. The fact our government gives us a few more liberties than you'd expect from a totalitarian regime is of little consequence, when they still hold the monopoly on violence.
Edited:
As I believe I said earlier, I am not a communist. I agree that non-competition would be bad in many ways, and that communism is mostly utopian. I am only against corporate corruption, and abuse of workers. That's why I consider myself a mutualist. Basically, I think corporations should be replaced with cooperatives.
Also, if I am correct, there are decentralized forms communism, that would avert some of the problems you list.
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ironic
CEOs do not 'earn' money, they accumulate capital by employing cheap labour (necessitated by market competition) while their employees sell their labour power in order to live. they provide people with goods and services because they are the only ones with the sufficient capital to privately own the means of production; they provide the goods because the majority inherited the ability to do so; there was no element of 'earning' or 'work' involved whatsoever. naturally, competition wouldn't exist in a society involving nationalized industries; competition is, obviously, not a necessity for the production of commodities and i can't fathom how you think it is. there's very little 'risk' involved when big capitalists make use of their investment capital - observe goldmann sachs and every company involved in the banking crisis - 'risks' incurred by capitalists are bailed out by the state, and the taxpayer foots the bill.
the definition of socialism is a society characterized by the common ownership of the means of production; the destruction of private (not personal) property, viz. private ownership of the means of production (the tools used for the creation of commodities, the means of subsistence). people work in a capitalist society because they are forced to sell their labour power in order to live. the 'welfare state' exists because it's in capital's interests to do so; it pacifies labour (and thus revolution). the 'driving force' to work, according to you, is greed; the existence of this labour incentive is due to the division of labour and the alienation within the capitalist mode of production, reducing man and his labour effectively to being a 'cog in the machine'. the liberal incentive argument is synonymous with the liberal human nature argument, and you shouldn't really bother with this kind of naivety given the wealth of education available to you which argues to the contrary.
fantastic idea. accept the world and it's inevitable cycle of crises, exploitation and mass suffering rather than attempting to change it, a large part of which is discussing with other members of the growing intelligentsia. of course we have to apply for jobs; it's a necessity to survive (and avoid mooching off your parents) in capitalist society. the only 'miserable fiscal situation' is the realities of capitalism. if you had half a brain, you'd realize the proof of this is right in front of you. unfortunately, liberalism is a mental disease, and all arguments that you digest will be promptly ignored the next day as your egotistical, ideological brain tumour redevelops.
point me to the economists that decry socialism for it's 'terrible consequences', despite capitalism having proven to have it's own terrible consequences since it's birth.
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Really, saying capitalism "works" in the current economic climate is a pretty hilarious claim.
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communism is utopian because it's the ideal, the move to the 'perfect society' following the socialist transition. if you're against corporate corruption and abuse of workers, you're against capitalism. the entire concept of business revolves around exploitation and corruption because they're the realities of the capitalist system. why is it that non-competition would be bad? the only reason you'd believe this is if you accepted the liberal human nature argument. the concept of replacing the 'bad corporations ablooo blooo' with anything that remains business-related, indeed, by advocating the continued existence of private property, is tantamount to whitewashing over rotting wood rather than replacing that rotting wood. 'decentralized communism'? communism is a classless, stateless society; surely you're aware of the withering away of the state as theorized by marx? surely you don't mean to espouse anti-authoritarianism in the sense of the vanguard state's repression of counterrevolutionary elements following the revolution? it seems to me you're some kind of anarcho-syndicalist. in other words, a reformist liberal.
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I say communism is utopian because with the world's current state, it would not work. If we work towards it, it may become possible in several hundred years, but not now. And competition is good, because it makes people build new, better things, so they can compete. And what's wrong with private property?
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you're entirely disregarding the fact that in a revolution there would be a transitory socialist state. this is the definition of, in your own words, working towards communism. we've already discussed market competition; it's the reason for the necessity of employing the cheapest possible labour (exploitation of the periphery, but principally, exploitation in general), smallest possible expenditure, capital accumulation (crises) etc. do we really need to again go over private property (private ownership of the means of production)? again, don't confuse it with personal property (what YOU own; your house, your car, your property).
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I'm totally against private property (as it's understood nowadays), but revolution through dictatorship of the proletariat would do the world no favours. We need a real intellectual revolution which occurs over a few generations whereby we understand the reality of society (that is, the reality that it is horizontal and we in actual fact are free to associate with any individual we want) and the state dissolves. Trying to fight the monopoly of physical violence with physical violence is just fucking retarded.
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A good commie is a dead commie.
(User was permabanned for this post ("Gimmick" - Orkel))
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I am against revolution though. After a revolution, we would still have people very against communism, so it would fail. And if a company was a cooperative, employing the cheapest possible labor couldn't happen, since the profit is still equally split up. And if the means of production is owned by all the workers who use it, but not others, I do not have a problem.
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Original name I must say...
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explain to me why the dictatorship of the proletariat would do the world no favours? how does centering the power into the hands of a few elite bourgeois do the world any favours? how does an 'intellectual revolution' really bring about the overthrow of all existing social conditions (or indeed, change anything at all) and why isn't a violent revolution ultimately necessary? to be fair, i don't really follow your waffle about horizontal realities. as to private property - what're you talking about when you say 'as it's understood nowadays', do you actually understand the concept?
regardless, by abolishing private property, which is the literal antithesis of the proletariat, you abolish the proletariat.
hence the existence of the vanguard party and repression of the counterrevolutionary elements that would make the thesis (communist ideal) impossible. it wouldn't 'fail' because you would have dissidence, that dissidence would be phased out eventually. nobody wants violent revolution, but reformism is a type of naive liberalism that's in league with the bourgeois as much as every other type.The Kakistocrat posted:
Edited:
that's funny, because globalization is imperialism. marx talks about the early stages in the manifesto. "The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development."
in other words, the opening of markets abroad, i.e. globalization. imperialism is the final stage of capitalism; if anything, in our late capitalist society, we're closer to it than ever before.
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Oh yes, let's have a dictatorship of the proletariat, lead by a vanguard party. Because we know how well that worked out before.
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It wouldn't do the world any favours because dictatorship necessarily implies physical violence which is morally wrong. First of all, if you think I'm all for the bourgeoisie you're reading my argument very, very weakly. The "waffle" about horizontal relations is integral to my argument. The state physically coerces people through cultural hegemonic means. When I refuse to pay my taxes, I'm brutalised by another human being directly, not the state. It's this cultural hegemony that propagates this idea that paying taxes = good, law = good, etc. This lie which is totally inconsistent with almost everyone's moral principles forces us to collectively invest in a system that leads to our mutual detriment (paying taxes for things we ultimately don't give a shit about, for example). Intellectual revolution is required in order for us to realise the horizontal nature of society. We need to remember that it's a human being restraining me and throwing me in a cell, and that we associate freely in general. A violent revolution would serve to no end other than to allow hegemonic power to change hands for the elite to brutalise another group of people. If such an intellectual revolution were to occur, the state would dissolve because we'd realise its existence is contingent on our support entirely.
Frankly I abhor any type of dictatorship and the very supposition that a communist one would be any more beneficial to me is full of hypocrisy. I wouldn't support such a revolution because it's fucking absurd to suggest we should fight statism with statism. We don't have to violently revolt because to do so would just be more of the same immoral bullshit. The only way statism can be ended is through peaceful, intellectual revolution and total commitment to the non-aggression principle.
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snip
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i don't think you understand the dictatorship of the proletariat. the word "dictatorship" isn't used here to denote a totalitarian system ruled by some kind of communist elite; it simply means, literally, the proletariat would dictate the affairs of the state and possess the political power. again, when private property (and thus the class hierarchy) is abolished, the proletariat is abolished; any connotations of "dictatorship" can then be disregarded.
the cultural hegemony you talk about is essentially the means of imperial dominance that's existed in every previous system. to use a very liberal argument, i could say that history proves that some kind of population-wide intellectual awakening to this fact is impossible, but i think it's inconceivable in another way. the bourgeoisie constantly envisage new ways of propagating their ruling-class worldview ideology (as well as maintaining the first world labour aristocracy) and there are always a majority of people willing to eat it up; if history, being the history of class struggles, has taught us anything, it's only in crises that the proletariat massively "wakes up" to the situation and achieves class consciousness - and in those circumstances, the outcome is generally violent. in a crisis where the oppressed realize they're oppressed, what's the likelihood that rather than overthrowing their oppressors through force and taking control, the oppressed simply say "lol the capitalists can't function without our support son let's just stop working for them and make a commune." i'd supplement this argument with the fact that in these cases, the ruling class responds with direct and brutal force anyway. the machinery of the state is utilized to crush the most non-violent resistance. again, i don't advocate violent revolution because i like the idea of putting bullets in fellow human beings, but because peaceful revolution is literally an impossibility.
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Frankly 'ruled by some kind of communist elite' and 'the proletariat would dictate the affairs of the state' sound basically synonymous. It sounds very much like linguistic trickery or meiosis and it's just condescending to assume I'm working off some kind of derivative, vulgar understanding of 'dictatorship'. I can assure you that's not the case. No person or faction or class or group of people should hold more political power than another person. It doesn't matter of they are benevolent, enlightened, the majority, whatever. The monopoly of physical violence is always illegitimate regardless of who has it. As for the abolishion of PP I'm all for that but I don't believe a non-peaceful revolution is the key at all.
Well I'd say if peaceful revolution is an impossibility, revolution in any form is impossible.
I don't see how such a revolution isn't conceivable. I've became awakened to the machinery of the state (and how it's built of our support/compliance), other people are capable of having the same awakening, therefore such a revolution is conceivable. For it to occur, it will have to span over multiple generations to happen in any meaningful way. However a violent revolution would merely pass the immoral monopoly of physical violence over to the next psuedo-moral superior and propagate class struggle of another kind. Consent is the key. It doesn't matter "if the elite won't consent" because the elite's elite status is purely contingent on the proletariat. Global class consciousness is a necessity; if it is achieved we simply won't need a violent revolution because we'd all agree to break out of the prisoners dilemma that the state drops us in.
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capitalism barely exists in the current economic climate. the fact that people associate the economic crisis of 2008 with capitalism is hilarious.
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Fair point, if 'capitalism' was limited to laissez-faire capitalism. I was referring more to state capitalism which identifies with what's happening in the world quite well.
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rule by the people and communist elite sound basically synonymous? glad we're agreed. before you can have democracy, the elements which make that democracy impossible (i.e. fascists or capitalists exercising any kind of power) have to be repressed via having the "monopoly of physical violence." regardless, i suppose i'm avoiding the problem you're addressing. i don't see any kind of moral transgression with the overthrow of the state regardless of the means by which it's achieved; it's self-defence. is it morally wrong for slaves to overthrow their masters? besides morality, you seem to be continuing with the idea that you can jump immediately to direct democracy. this is anarchist naivety.
you are among the smallest minority of those who identify the system itself as the malignant tumour, and aren't taking into account that there are many more who understand the system for what it is but nonetheless endorse it. so long as the existing social conditions remain, there can't be any real awakening. liberalism takes many forms, one of which is knowing how things work but being indifferent regardless. "peaceful class struggle," to me, seems like a complete misnomer; how are your ideas in any way not in direct alignment with every kind of liberal reformism? in other words, every existing non-revolutionary party? they all seek to reform the system with the system's own democracy; in the words of immortal technique, the system won't change, the system will eventually change you. if peaceful revolution seems to you the only possibility (and the only possibility you'll endorse), then you're a liberal counterrevolutionary.
