What is communism ?

[FredLC]

For the benefit of quality discussion in the forum (since the topic of Communism invariably comes up again and again), I think this thread and especially FredLC's first post should be stickied.

I feel flattered, but my complete response to that question can be found in this page:

Ask a Red.

The response there is much more conscientious.

Nothing about socialism necessitates a hierarchical government of any form. You're(and many others are) mixing it with state capitalism.

I'd refer you to my post above as well, where you'll see that I use the classical Marxist archetype to formulate the reply.

Still, what are, in your opinion, the differences between communism, socialism and state capitalism?

I'd like to point you as well to my post about capitalism in the formal CFC debate on the topic. Specially my post to AVN in the argumentative phase (page 2), where I argue why social-democracies are still capitalistic in essence, because I think the mindset angle I used there would pretty much answer your formulation here as well.

Regards .

 

[Tani Coyote]

For me, I'd say the difference between state capitalism and socialism is ultimately who the government spending benefits: true socialism benefits the population; under state capitalism the government is basically a business with legal power, run for the benefit of its shareholders - the political elite. Possibly the business elites too.

The line is blurry, akin to the different flavors of totalitarianism, but that's the fundamental difference to me: who the control of the means of production is supposed to benefit.

Of course then you can argue how socialism need not involve the state at all.

 

[civver_764]

Still, what are, in your opinion, the differences between communism, socialism and state capitalism?

In basic terms, state capitalism is where the state simply takes the role of the capitalist and socialism is where the workers control their workplaces collectively and democratically.

I don't make much of a distinction between socialism and communism other than that communism is more ingrained and "pure". You could also say it's when the whole world reaches socialism, or when it becomes unnecessary to suppress the bourgeois.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'll take dialect and connotations over the dictionary when necessary. That is all.

Which would be fine in a non-technical setting, but not in a political debate. One cannot embrace linguistic solipsism and expect coherent communication.

 

[Jabarto]

\One cannot embrace linguistic solipsism and expect coherent communication.

That's not quite how I would have put it, but you're basically right. All too often I find myself unable to continue discussions, regardless of the topic, because the people I'm arguing with refuse to use words in the context that humanity as a whole has agreed is appropriate.

 

[Dachs]

Too bad the only times when linguistic solipsism actually gets beaten down are when it is employed in arguments about "capitalism" and "socialism" and "communism" and all that, but is freely permitted and even encouraged for such words as "genocide".

 

[Bill3000]

What is communism ?

With that said, all the choices seem to be poorly defined - the last concept is only given true by Marx in an advanced stage of communism once there is an abundance of goods and services that a developed communist society will produce, as there would be enough to satisfy everyone's needs. And that's just orthodox Marxist communism

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It's the last Social Policy in the Order tree. +5 hammers per city. Pretty nice if you can get to it.

 

[Alassius]

I feel flattered, but my complete response to that question can be found in this page:

Ask a Red.

The response there is much more conscientious.

Fred,

I probably don't have much time to elaborate, but I'll contest this:

The first step was missed, and the third was never taken. As you see, the way I perceive it, it's indeed very wrong to call the leftist regimes of USSR and China, and it's satellites, communist regimes, when the term “communism” is linked to Karl Marx's writings. They were not a fruit of the Marxist ideal, and never followed it's steps. That is why, indeed, when someone say that “a communist regime was never really tried”, he is mostly right, for while it's not unfair to acknowledge what happened in real life as regimes of communist inspiration, they certainly never followed the plans of the theoretical visionaries, specially when we admit that, by speaking of communism, we are speaking of marxist communism.

I think it may be helpful to distinguish between several meanings of communism:

1) The utopian economic system, where the "society" plans production, and where the productive forces are so advanced that it is possible to "to each according to his need", without requiring more sophisticated ways of distribution.
2) The set of policies designed to transform a dying capitalist economy into the socialist phase. The most clear description of such policies is found in The Principles of Communism, section 18.
3) The metaphysical arguments on why (2) would necessarily lead to (1). These are primarily historical and dialectical materialism.

Without going into details (apologies), I would argue that (2) was in fact attempted in the Soviet Union and China. But because (3) is flawed*, (1) was not guaranteed by (2). So, the Soviet Union preached in (3), implemented (2), its only failure was to achieve (1). As an analogy, consider a religion. Suppose I call myself a buddhist, I follow buddhist ethics such as nonkilling, but the afterlife turns out to be imaginary: if I die, I'd vanish instead of being born into a different body. In that case, would it stop you from calling me a buddhist?


* Of the many flaws, a few that most apply here:

a) Historical materialism is rigidly deterministic, but has no explanation on what would happen if you apply 2) to a less-than-advanced capitalist economy. The gap allowed Soviet leaders to interpret the theory at their pleasure. The determinism was used to suppress different interpretations (I'm the official interpretation, if you don't agree with me, you must be wrong, so I'll throw you into a jail, or at least exile you).

b) The contradiction of needing a dictatorship to get to an anarchy. This was caused by Marx's confusion of all struggle being class struggle in nature. See my arguments here.

c) Essentially that dialectics (either Hegel or Marx) is some kind of voodoo mojo that can be used to prove anything, and hence useless - Karl Popper would say it much more convincingly than what I'm doing!

See also my arguments here, here, and here.

 

[FredLC]

Alassius:

I'm not sure if I'm not following you, but didn't you, well, repeated my argument right after you said you disagreed with it?

in this excerpt of flaw "a"...

Historical materialism is rigidly deterministic, but has no explanation on what would happen if you apply 2) to a less-than-advanced capitalist economy

... you kinda said exactly what I said; that the Marxist model did not intended to be applied to backward economies.

I'll read your links to see if I'm missing something of your point, probably tomorrow, but if you can elaborate in few words...

Regards .

 

[Alassius]

I'm disputing specifically this sentence: "it's indeed very wrong to call the leftist regimes of USSR and China, and it's satellites, communist regimes"

I should've highlighted it!

 

[FredLC]

Ah, ok.

Well, in my text, I begun explaining how much variation the term "communism" has faced, and specifically used a methodological cut to define that I was using Marxism. The sentence you highlight, after all, ends with "when the term 'communism' is linked to Karl Marx's writings".

That said, look at the terms you set to bring about your contemption - specifically the item 2:

2) The set of policies designed to transform a dying capitalist economy into the socialist phase (...)

That's my point, right there. What is a "dying capitalist state" for Marx? One in which , after the success of the phase of enrichment has emancipated the workers, they acknowledge their insurmountable class power.

Does it look like what happened in the USSR, or China, or Cuba, or the Eastern Europe? I see no worldly examples that follow the recipe written by Marx, not of execution of the model, but of inception of the model. These were poor, backwards economies. Old Russia was nearly feudal. There was no enrichment nor enlightment of any kind.

To be absolutely precise, I think - again, as it would derive from my indicated post - that by diagnosing the class struggle, Marx ironically advised the rich societies (ergo, those able to follow his steps to the letter) on how to minimize their internal degrees of discontent from the lower classes, minimizing the risks of the class showdown he thought inevitable (and history so far has proven all fatalists to be wrong). This is what the social-democratic modern states are all about.

So there never were a society, in the world, "mature" to try communism. The rich ones managed to subdue general discontent to sustainable levels by some wealthy redistribution (pay raises, union advancements, public healthy and education, etc...); the poor ones, that had no resources for that distribution, were either oppressed by internal and external forces (dictatorships in Africa and South America), or indeed did turn communist artificially, by the grace of the discourse of small politically organized entities with Marxist jargon, not by a natural and generalized consensus that Marx, again, thought inevitable.

When the instructions are disregarded before an experiment begin, could one really say that the experiment was even tried? I'd argue that the answer is no - therefore, the first step was never taken.

Apparently we don't disagree that the third step was missed (transition from socialism to communism), so I didn't venture there.

Of course, if you dissociate from Marx' pure writings, if you deny the methodological cut I proposed, you can negate all my argument, because, as I said, no one has authority to determine the limits of a conceptual idea, that is without real physical world phenomena to help us find it's delimitation. But IMHO, the cut I proposed is legitimate because Marx is the figurehead thought of every time people talk about these concepts.

Regards .

 

[katipunero]

I voted for C and I am happy I am not alone in my choice.

 

[Tee Kay]

Communism is whatever you want it to be!

 

[Alassius]

Ah, ok.

Well, in my text, I begun explaining how much variation the term "communism" has faced, and specifically used a methodological cut to define that I was using Marxism. The sentence you highlight, after all, ends with "when the term 'communism' is linked to Karl Marx's writings".

Our difference is that I see the "aberrations" as a natural consequence of Marxism, instead of an accidental mutation. Communism is "against human nature" not because the utopian economic system calls for something we don't have, but because the transitioning socialist phase relies on a perfectly just and altruistic leadership. It was justified using vague class struggle theories that basically can be reduced to "if you are a proletarian you must be just to other proletarians, and love your proletarian brothers." That turned out to be unreliable. Human nature is such that once you have excessive power over other people, you abuse it, regardless of which class you nominally belong to. You can't have a just and altruistic leadership without limits to its power*.

This is a fundamental deficiency of Marxism. Starting a revolution in a richer country is not going to make the vanguards less tempted to usurp power from the class they are supposed to represent. The extreme poverty in the Soviet Union was only partly due to the low productive forces they started with. A more important reason was the inequality (and the entailed lack of productivity), which self-reinforces in the absence of political institutions seeking to do the reverse, and which won't be solved simply by being richer. Until someone manages to fix that, it is reasonable to think any further attempts of communism would end up the same as the Soviet Union, even if they "[follow] the plans of the theoretical visionaries". To plan for a goal is one thing. Whether the plan is well-designed that it can help to reach the goal is a different issue. In the case of Marxism, the plans were so wrong, and so detached from reality, that its execution led to the exact opposite of its goals, much like a mindless charge ordered by a military general would lead to a massacre of his troops instead of victory. The theoretical visionaries must be held responsible*, in the same way the general would be for a botched battle plan. And the theory itself must be scrutinized and refuted, not religiously defended.

Building on that analogy, you can say that a charge would destroy your enemies' morale, therefore winning you the battle. You can actually order the charge. But if the charge failed, you need to think whether charging was a good idea at all, instead of arguing that because you were charging on foot and not on horses, you weren't really charging. True, if you were to charge on horses it might be possible to win. Yet that depends more on what your opponent is armed with. If they have machineguns, horses aren't going to help. In the same way, the argument of "the first step was missed" is incomplete as a justification, in particular it does not justify the plausibility of communism in the future. All it can do is to say "in a world satisfying such and such conditions a communist society would happen" (similar to "if the enemies have only bows and arrows a mounted charge would win"). But that is not our world.

As such, communism must be declared as, at the very least, inapplicable. It should have died when it became apparent that the more developed capitalist countries were not going to welcome a revolution. Accept that it's a failure, it can die a dignified death, Marx can have merits for raising concerns, and we can move on to search for a better theory. Keep clinging on it, you'd have to keep chewing from it bits and pieces that are no longer realistic, while adding any random nonsense that are politically expedient at the moment (good thing that dialectics can be used to justify anything), much like what Lenin did. In the end, you'd find pretty much everything Marx used to contend for his utopia was wrong, the newest version of the theory is so utterly different that it's no longer recognisable, yet you are still compelled to believe the utopia is possible. This is worse than death from a thousand cuts. It's being kept alive after a thousand cuts.

* Marx was particularly responsible for dismissing everything his predecessors learnt about how to run a liberal, accountable government as bourgeoisie hypocrisy. According to him all kinds of bourgeoisie governments are equally exploitative. In turn, this was interpreted to mean that anything bourgeoisie governments do are for the purpose of exploiting the proletarians, or, at best, ineffective smoke screens used to cover up the exploitation. The lack of modern political institutions meant the Soviet Union was run like a medieval autocracy, its methods often more cruel than the worst of tsars.

 

[Traitorfish]

Our difference is that I see the "aberrations" as a natural consequence of Marxism, instead of an accidental mutation. Communism is "against human nature" not because the utopian economic system calls for something we don't have, but because the transitioning socialist phase relies on a perfectly just and altruistic leadership.

Rosa Luxemburg disagrees.

 

[aelf]

And, as usual, Alassius pretty much ignores all that is methodological about Marxism and focuses on the popularised prophecy of revolution and utopia. The only concession he makes is to cite Karl Popper, without bothering to explain why, in not being scientific, Marxism is less credible than other philosophical traditions. Is Utilitarianism scientific?

And I don't suppose he knows much about the Frankfurt School and later Marxist analyses that have come up with interesting explanations for why the prophecy did not come true, explanations which do not rest solely on the reasons that FredLC gave here.

 

[Quackers]

classless, stateless society where the means of production are owned by everybody!

 

[Alassius]

Rosa Luxemburg disagrees.

Just because she disagrees with Lenin doesn't mean she has a workable system. There are plenty of problems that cannot be wished away simply by saying "we'll have democracy". For one thing, how do you fight electoral frauds? For another, how do you appoint factory bosses? Who do you assign to allocate food? For yet another, what if people democratically vote for something you don't like? Say if they vote to evict all gypsies? Or if they vote for a strong dictator? Or that they vote to ban less-than-popular ideologies, for example democratic socialism? Or that they vote to restore private property and free market? Do you allow them?

And, as usual, Alassius pretty much ignores all that is methodological about Marxism and focuses on the popularised prophecy of revolution and utopia. The only concession he makes is to cite Karl Popper, without bothering to explain why, in not being scientific, Marxism is less credible than other philosophical traditions. Is Utilitarianism scientific?

Methodology is the root of problems of Marxism. I keep citing Karl Popper simply because he was the most prominent thinker to question dialectics, and he wrote a lot better than me! His thoughts can be digested this way: dialectics can explain everything; given a prediction made with dialectics, you cannot know how likely it will realise, because one can construct an opposite prediction just as convincingly. If Marx said that capitalism is doomed, you might as well believe capitalism will survive quite well instead, because you can prove that using the same methodology, just like the later Marxist analyses did, and I'm sure future Marxists would keep doing. Hence, any prediction made using dialectics has no practical value.

Now, Marxism is not less credible than other philosophical schools. Traditional philosophy contains no lack of nutty ideas. All in all Marxism is probably one of the sanest. Marxism however differ from other philosophical schools in that it claims to be scientific, i.e. it's inherently superior to all other schools, and is as plausible as science. That is why it's dangerous. Basically, if a philosopher tells you if you close your eyes the world would disappear, you would not believe him one iota. Marx however insisted that his words were as trustworthy as a physicist's, so if he told you the world would disappear, you better listen. If you don't, you are an enemy of the people. Such arrogance is rare in the history of philosophy.

And I don't suppose he knows much about the Frankfurt School and later Marxist analyses that have come up with interesting explanations for why the prophecy did not come true, explanations which do not rest solely on the reasons that FredLC gave here.

I'd appreciate it if you can enlighten me.

 

[Traitorfish]

Just because she disagrees with Lenin doesn't mean she has a workable system. There are plenty of problems that cannot be wished away simply by saying "we'll have democracy". For one thing, how do you fight electoral frauds? For another, how do you appoint factory bosses? Who do you assign to allocate food? For yet another, what if people democratically vote for something you don't like? Say if they vote to evict all gypsies? Or if they vote for a strong dictator? Or that they vote to ban less-than-popular ideologies, for example democratic socialism? Or that they vote to restore private property and free market? Do you allow them?

My point was that Libertarian Marxist ideologies, such as Luxembergism and Council Communism, reject the need for formal leaders or centralised governments, so the flaws which you mention, which all exist within a statist system, are not relevant, or at least not directly so. They're honestly more like Anarchism than they are like Leninism.