Forgive me Reds, if I might take a crack at this. I'd be interested if you think my hunches are on or off base. I suspect this, and the continued failure by even minor party standards of Communist political efforts in the US comes from:
1) A lack of organizational and political talent. The fragmentation of "New Left" type groups in the US is not a new development, and there doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to approach China, social issues, or organized labor. The kinds of younger Americans who might be interested in far-left political activity have plenty of other groups to chose from, and the types that could provide legitimate political advice, or organizing, would flock to the Greens, or somewhere else. Cheezy is legitimately the only American over the age of 18 that I have ever met, or even really READ about, that unabashedly calls himself a communist.
2) The failure to preach their message outside of a small demographic group. I believe that the majority of American communist voters tend to be whites with access to a university education, just like members in urban green parties, OWS-types, etc. The *actual poor and underclass* has been in lockstep with Democrats for decades, and nobody, not even the better financed greens, has been able to dislodge them.
3) The failure of a coherent way to articulate what a "communist" administration would do for local issues. What does a Communist school board member do, practically speaking, when his other 5 peers are mainstream capitalist leaders? Does a Communist city council member try to nationalize various commercial zoning areas? It would seem that many in the party figured the only practical way to preach that message is to do it nationally, which they can't do without money, leadership, or organizational talent.
On the contrary, your contribution here is well met! I've greatly appreciated your expertise on this subject, as it's something that bothers me greatly, and I've incorporated your analyses into my own positions/opinions on the matter.
First question. Why am I not approved... and
Bast is?
Oh, um, this is embarrassing. You didn't get the memo? I guess the men in leather flatcaps with red stars on them got lost on the way to your flat.
I belive Cheezy stated earlier that Marx said all nations would get to socialism in their own way, and I think maybe even slightly different kinds of socialism. So does nations still exist in socialism/communism?
And what's really the difference between socialism and communsim?
I will answer the last question first, as it gives the second half of my answer greater context.
Socialism is the transitory phase between capitalism and communism. The Dialectic definition is that it is the antithesis of capitalism, arising in most stark opposition to the characteristic attributes of capitalism. The more practical defintion of socialism is that it is the process of dismantling what makes capitalism capitalism, and replacing it with what makes communism communism. In this sense, it may take anywhere between months or years to decades and centuries. We've never achieved communism, so we have no idea how long it can or will take.
So what are the characteristics of capitalism that are at stake in socialism? First and foremost, the private control of the means of production. Socialism will seek to eliminate private ownership and replace it with worker ownership and management. The precise shape of this new enterprise will be determined by the workers of particular companies or industries themselves.
Second, which by necessity follows the first, is to eliminate class antagonisms by eliminating political classes. Why must this follow the first? Because private property is the root of political classes. The property-owning class, the capitalist class, will lose its property rights, and thus join the ranks of the working class, the proletariat, such that all people will be proletarians, and it will become impossible to be anything but proletarian. When there is only one universal class, then there are in fact
no classes at all. These first two actions will, by necessity, have resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth. This phrase is used in bourgeois rhetoric to mean taking from the rich and giving to the poor; while it may on some level contain such Robin Hood elements, most of this redistribution will be the result of the removal of institutions which allow the accumulation or maintenance of fortunes to continue to exist.
Third, in socialism we will level the playing field. This means working to bring more backwards or underprivileged peoples or sectors of society up to speed with the rest of us. This may include unbalanced privileges in the nature of Affirmative Action in education or government, and also construction projects to extend the luxuries and benefits of society to these wanting areas.
The fourth goal is the elimination of the wage system. Socialism's mantra is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution," or in other words, "those who work, eat." This is an understandable metric for those who have lived under capitalism, but is also the halfway point between the logic of wages for work and no wages for work. Under capitalism, we are forced to work for wages, because we use that money to obtain the necessities of life. But in communism, we would have no wages, because communism is governed by the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his
need." Thus, at this halfway point we still make use of money as the universal exchange unit, because society is simply not ready for the ethical demands of the communist mantra of mutual brotherhood. We will learn it through socialism, and when we are ready, it will have gradually phased itself out, and money will become useless and meaningless.
The fifth goal is the decentralization and democratization of all decision-making aspects of government. All politics is local anyway. By pushing decision-making downward, we directly involve the worker in the daily running of the business that he labors in. He gains democratic power in the economy for the same reason that he once gained democratic power in politics: because
people deserve to have a say in the affairs that govern their lives. Decentralization destroys the ability of power to be abused, and prevents the rise of minority power groups that can grant themselves privileges and enthrall society such as liberal "democracy" has permitted capitalists to do. It is a popular adage that power corrupts, and the more power that is spread among people, the less overall power over the whole is held by one person. When everyone has equal power, such as one vote and nothing else (meaning, no lobbying power, wealth, or other privileges that the rich make use of in our "democracy" to provide themselves with far more power than their one political vote grants them), then by definition, the least corrupt arrangement possible exists. Once all decision-making apparatuses have been pushed downward maxmially, then local councils will have control over all the functions that the "state" once held, and the state itself will wither away out of sheer lack of necessity.
When all five of these goals has been achieved, then we will have achieved communism. Communism is a society without a state, without money, and without classes, in which one contributes according to his abilities, and receives according to his needs.
Nation means two different things. RT (Reindeer Thistle) expanded on one aspect, which was nations, i.e. peoples of the same ethnicity. But there is another meaning, the far more common one today, which is nation-state, i.e. a country. The name derives from a time when it was envisioned that each nation of people could, and rightly should, have its own state to live in. This principle is central to the idea of self-determination, but also central to nationalism, and thus a somewhat dangerous idea, as it can lead to chauvinism, which is when one group or person imagines itself inherently superior to another, or to all others.
Nation-states would continue to exist in socialism, but as explained above, their utility would be perpetually eroded against.
RT is so awful, as soon as I see the logo, I refuse to watch or make further contact with it.
Oh come now, they are not so bad. They can behave like a tabloid sometimes, but in that respect they are no different than any other major "news" source.
I was under the impression that a communist society would be without money. Is this true? If so, why would a socialist government, presumably with communism as their goal, bother to buy the means of production with money, rather than just take it? And are the capitalists just supposed to continue on going until communism is achived, and then accept that their wealth is taken from them? (Not that i sympathize with them, it just sounds like a weird way of actions).
Also, in a communist society, would a person not working to provide the community be punished (kind of like in the clip, like they wouldn't get a share of the fruits of the labour)? One of the arguments against communism or socialism that I have heard, is that it would produce "extra passengers", who would only be "takers" and not "makers".
I am genuinly curious, and essentially an aspiring communist, but unfourtunatly not too well informed.
I have hopefully explained an answer to this above.
To RT's academic reading list, allow me to add some fiction works and "lighter" reading, which I find just as useful, if not more so, as the heavy Marxist texts:
A Traveler From Altruria, by William Dean Howells
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, by Bertolt Brecht
The Soul of Man Under Socialism, by Oscar Wilde
The Iron Heel, by Jack London
The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells
But I do belive in the DOP! 
