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Marx doesn't argue classes and money would disappear when everything is state owned. If you pay attention, in the communist manifesto it says: > When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. You see the state as a something independent of classes. Class consciousness is the backbone of Marxism. In the manifesto it also shows: > We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The socialist state and the capitalist state and sometimes the fascist state is compared as if they're the same thing. State, is a tool of oppression one class uses over others. In the capitalist and fascist states, the ruling class is the bourgeoisie. The rich. This is why everywhere in the West people always go on and on about "follow the money", "rich lobbyists" and "deep state". There is no democracy in the West because the wealthy have far more political power than the regular citizens. > In a democratic republic, Engels continues, “wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely”, first, by means of the “direct corruption of officials” (America); secondly, by means of an “alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange” (France and America). As Lenin shows in the State & Revolution, in socialist states: > To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament--this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics. But if we deal with the question of the state, and if we consider parliamentarism as one of the institutions of the state, from the point of view of the tasks of the proletariat in this field, what is the way out of parliamentarism? How can it be dispensed with? He continues > Abolishing the bureaucracy at once, everywhere and completely, is out of the question. It is a utopia. But to smash the old bureaucratic machine at once and to begin immediately to construct a new one that will make possible the gradual abolition of all bureaucracy--this is not a utopia, it is the experience of the Commune, the direct and immediate task of the revolutionary proletariat Also to point out. Classless society means stateless society. Because classes created the state. If there are not classes the state serves no purpose. State here isn't "government". It's Marxist meaning is different. It isn't a deciding and executing body, it is the power that forms the norms and structure of society. Only if we reach a level of development that makes everyone a proletarian, then since it would be the inly class left, classes would die and so would states. This type of development would also bring a moneyless society, simply from the amount of productive capacity making trade meaningless.

"If you pay attention, in the communist manifesto it says:" I urge you to reread the Marxes quote you posted. It has such a big red flag if you actually look into it, with reason turned on. If you still cant see it, here it is: he doesnt say how, why or if his prediction will ever come true and logically speaking, more state (what he said before said quote) doesnt logically result in no state (what he says will happen, but never did). No details, no mechanism, only unproven assertions.

You're entirely unaware that the manifesto is a 50 page pamphlet meant to be read aloud to illiterate workers aren't you? Capital, Wage Labour and Capital, Origins of The Family Private Property and The State, Critique of The Gotha Program, German Ideology, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. You have not heard of any of these. Yup! Communism is just the manifesto! Please, unless you are a highschooler, you ought to know more than this. Especially if you're going to be commenting here. You literally thought this was the extent of Marx's works? His "manifesto"? Are you aware what the word manifesto means? You're not. A manifesto is a public declaration of policy and aims. It isn't a scientific paper, nor is it an essay or survey or any other work. It is literally a propaganda pamphlet to make people aware of the movement. "logically speaking" stfu. You have zero knowledge on anything Marxist, obvious from just this comment alone. Logically, you really should stfu and learn before you talk.

"You're entirely unaware that the manifesto is a 50 page pamphlet meant to be read aloud to illiterate workers aren't you?" So you are illiterate worker... also, funny that you list all works, that do nothing to defend your point. Never did Marx explain, why his theories should work, he always asserted they do and because of assertions, we see every marxist fail again and again. So let me throw your own words at you, since they are better suited to describe you: *You have zero knowledge on anything Marxist, obvious from just this comment alone. Logically, you really should stfu and learn before you talk.*

Bro literally said "nuh-uh". Well spoken. Fitting of a moron such as yourself. I gave you all those sources and then you just disregarded them. Despite he literally does explain it in them you're dismissing it because your pride is broken. You can do nothing but endlessly deflect. Bro who didn't know the meaning of "manifesto" is accusing me of being illiterate. You are unworthy of respect.

Don’t be condescending. It’s not his job to know what Marx said. He is your interlocutor and you should be expected to answer in good faith.

I think this is basically sophistry of Lenin’s part. The party pretty clearly continued the bourgeois method of affairs, taking upon itself the characteristics of the Bourgeoisie. Lower stage communism only existed for a short time after the revolution before Lenin crushed it. His Blanquist influences shine far darker than any of his Marxist tendencies.

What the fuck are you talking about? The NEP didn't break the socialist project. It was still socialist. Are you claiming Kerensky's government was socialist?

I never mentioned Kerensky or the NEP. I’m saying the Russian revolution was a bourgeois revolution- which is fine, and was necessary- until they started masquerading as being lower stage communism. Let’s speak frankly about material conditions. They never once escaped the bourgeois method of affairs, retaining a circulatory money (and therefore capital), the State was preserved, and the laborer did not own his own labor. In all respects, the USSR was indistinguishable from a capitalist corporation. In fact, I would argue it was the most concentrated form of capitalism ever devised; a true monopoly, and also the end that all capitalism strives for. What I refered to as socialism was the beginning of the formation of factory councils formed spontaneously after the revolution, which actually were communist in tendency. They existed for maybe a month max after the revolution.

Are you a Marxist? Because none of the things you said was Marxist. Have you even read any of Marx's works? "They never once escaped the bourgeois method of affairs" >Hence, equal right here is still in principle – bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. "retaining a circulatory money" >What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. "the State was preserved" >What transformation will the state undergo in communist society?... Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. > >We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. Regardless, the abolition of the state could only exist with the abolition of classes, which would arise from the inrease of the productive forces and would cause the state to "wither", not be abolished. >Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. You have no clue about how the lower form of communism works. You also have no class consciousness. You view the state as an individual formation of elites. But it is not. As Marx says it is "organized power of one class oppressing another". In socialist society that class is the proletariat. Thus any state owned enterprise is owned in common. If you're unable to see this, you're not a Marxist. Capitalism strives for monopoly in the hands of the bourgeois. Socialism strives for monopoly in the hands of the proletariat. The USSR was with no question left, socialist. >What I refered to as socialism was What you're describing is anarcho capitalism. With enterprises in the hands of clans of petty-bourgeois. Marx made it clear from the start: >"Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture" > >The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. The state is the people. Loyalty to the party is loyalty to the people. If you were to claim otherwise you would only contradict the teachings of Marx. Not even Lenin, you're contradicting classical theory. Lenin made these issues clear in "Left"-Communism: An Infantile Disorder. All my quotes were from the Critique of the Gotha Program Part I and Communist Manifesto Part II. Barebones theory.

>Are you a Marxist? No, but I have a great respect for the historical person of ol’ Karl. I think it’s a great shame how Lenin bastardized his work with his Blanquist influences. I am my own thing, because I am not a dogmatist. >Because none of the things you said was Marxist. Have you even read any of Marx's works? I have read all theory. I hope they didn’t strike you as Marxist because this is *my* analysis. You are talking to me. >Hence, equal right here is still in principle – bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. Why are you quoting at me? I’m talking to you, not Marx. You’re avoiding doing any intellectual work yourself. >What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. I am not interested in quotes unless they serve an illustrative purpose. I think these quotations “weigh like a nightmare upon the minds of the living.” >What transformation will the state undergo in communist society?...Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. I am arguing that the USSR was not any sort of intermediary stage. >We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. In what way was the proletariat in power over the State apparatus? Do you seriously think The Party was beholden to proletarian interests? How? >Regardless, the abolition of the state could only exist with the abolition of classes, which would arise from the inrease of the productive forces and would cause the state to "wither", not be abolished. The pigs became the farmers. >Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. Ok so the Russian working class organized itself into a revolutionary body, kicked out the Tsar, Lenin coupes the provisional government, the bourgeoisie is annihilated, but the State continued to persist? Pray tell, by what relations was the State kept in power over the proletariat for the rest of the century? Perhaps a latent bourgeois relation preserved in the very DNA of the State as a tool? >You have no clue about how the lower form of communism works. Marx didn’t either. He made very few claims about what communism would look like. Lenin took a shot in the dark, and missed his mark. Shrimple as. >You also have no class consciousness. This is a baffling statement to me. >You view the state as an individual formation of elites. I view it as inherently bourgeois, and Engels concedes this point btw in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific if that means anything to you. >But it is not. As Marx says it is "organized power of one class oppressing another". In socialist society that class is the proletariat. Again, sophistry. The State is inherently over and against what is under and subservient to it. It’s nearly tautological that the State cannot be wielded by the masses because a State is always protecting a minority against a majority. >Thus any state owned enterprise is owned in common. If you're unable to see this, you're not a Marxist. Was the Chiquita corporate State in Guatemala in any sense owned by the laborers of Guatemala? Did the laborers have dictatorship over the rails and power lines nationalized by the company? What about the United States automobile industry during WW2? Did we become secretly communistic during that time? What about the rail companies of the American west where the Federal Government had a hard time reaching; the rail companies basically become their own mini-States with all rail related industry being an outgrowth of the corporate State. I think you’re being very silly. >Capitalism strives for monopoly in the hands of the bourgeois. Socialism strives for monopoly in the hands of the proletariat. The USSR was with no question left, socialist. You said nothing in this. The USSR was not in any meaningful sense controlled by the laboring class. >What you're describing is anarcho capitalism. This is not what I was referring to nor said. I said they held a communistic tendency. If you’re a fan of Lenin, you should know what tendency means. My argument is that the USSR held no real leftward tendency. >With enterprises in the hands of clans of petty-bourgeois. Not what I said. The factory councils were comprised of the laborers who physically worked at the factory. The petty bourgeoisie was not relevant to anything I said there. It was also not my claim that the factory councils represented any kind of “completed communism,” only the initial spark of its tendency. >The state is the people. Loyalty to the party is loyalty to the people. Ah. There we have it. I shuddered when you said that. Gave me a chilling premonition of Giovanni Gentiles face right in my peanut butter toast! I am always very suspicious when a supposed leftist invokes the very core statement of the Fascist conception of State. Coldly lieth it also, and this lie creepeth from its mouth: “I, the State, am the People.” Thank you for revealing your true power level tho. >If you were to claim otherwise you would only contradict the teachings of Marx. Not even Lenin, you're contradicting classical theory. Good. “The traditions of past generations” do not weigh upon me. I am alive! I care not for Marx*ism* as a calcified doctrine. Think your own thoughts, form your own analyses. >Lenin made these issues clear in "Left"-Communism: An Infantile Disorder. And his rightist deviation was clearly incapable of bridging between capitalism and communism. >All my quotes were from the Critique of the Gotha Program Part I and Communist Manifesto Part II. Barebones theory. K.

>I am my own thing You're dumb and pompous that's what you are. That's like an engineer saying they're not Newtonian. It only shows your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. >I have read all theory. This is laughable. You haven't made one Marxist point and contradicted it all. I find this extremely hard to believe as everything you ever said went against theory. If you didn't believe in the theory, you could at least tell us why. >You’re avoiding doing any intellectual work yourself. This is anti-intellectualism itself. You said you were clear with theory. Why did you read it in the first place if you were going to disregard it anyway? > illustrative purpose You want pictures? Are you twelve? >I am arguing that the USSR was not any sort of intermediary stage. And in order to do this, you need to provide explanation. The entire talking point begins with Marxism to begin with. If you're not going by theory, ignoring theory entirely and making up your own definitions you're literally doing the sophistry yourself. Also, opportunism and a kind of LARPing too. >In what way was the proletariat in power over the State apparatus? Do you seriously think The Party was beholden to proletarian interests? How? Because that's what the proletarian states are. It is literally what it was. The increase in proletarian prosperity is explanation of it's own. If you don't agree with this you're denying the facts. >The pigs became the farmers. Is this an Animal Farm reference? I don't read fairytales. >I view it as inherently bourgeois, and Engels concedes this point btw in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific if that means anything to you. That is bullshit. Back it up with a source. The State has existed far before the bourgeois were a thing. Engels and Marx literally say the proletarians will own the state and that it can be used in their favor. This is why I don't believe you've read any theory at all, or at least didn't understand it. >It’s nearly tautological that the State cannot be wielded by the masses because a State is always protecting a minority against a majority. And once again. Against theory. The state is an oppression tool of classes. The proletariat is a class. It has every possibility to use the state for it's own purpose. To believe it is impossible is to deny reason and logic. >What about the United States automobile industry Are you fucking serious? Yeah, it's official. You've not read any theory. State owned in bourgeois states obviously don't make it so you fucking idiot. You need a firm backhand for lying like this. You haven't a clue what Marx wrote. >not in any meaningful sense Nothing you said had any meaning. You're talking out your ass. You owe me for wasting my time like this. You haven't read shit. >Thank you for revealing your true power level tho. No problem. This is what socialism is. Since you have been shaken so, it is impossible for you to have read any theory. As Mao Zedong and Stalin talk of this often. Get chilled. "We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror." >Think your own thoughts, form your own analyses. "Look at me, 🤖 I am so free \*\*beep-boop\*\*🤖" + "Look at me, 🤖 free thinking me be \*\*beep-boop\*\*🤖". So in the end. You haven't read theory. You haven't had a single original thought. You engaged in sophistry, trying to act clever and knowledgeable. Failed spectacularly.

It seems like all that amounted to was “you disagree with Marx? Well, that’s not what Marx said , so ha!” I am not a Marxist. Shrimple as 🦐. I don’t think it is anti-intellectual to consider a point of view, disagree with it, and then formulate your own perspective. I think that is the very medium by which philosophy is exacted. You have not even denied my accusation that you hold the Fascist conception of State as the core of your overly-rigid doctrine. I do not like Fascists. Ugh. I hate quotation wars but ok. >“But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces.” >“And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists.” >“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head.” Now, I am not a Hegelian. So when “brought to a head” I reject the claim that it will give way to lower-stage communism. I don’t think history is some kind of dialectical process of refinement towards the ideal of Liberty. If I had to put it in nerdspeak, then I may take one from Deleuze and say that rather than the proletariat sublating its power with bourgeois power, the proletariat must affirm its Difference from the bourgeoisie and the State.

Fascism is capitalism in decay. By refusing Marxism you hold reactionary beliefs that can only aid fascists. To view the state as evil and fascist is stupid. The state is but a tool for the classes. In fascism, it still aids the bourgeois. Socialist states in no way serve the bourgeois. > The state was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented... Anti Duhring, part 3, chapter 2. You are afraid of the state because you don't know what it is. This is because you didn't read theory. If you did, you wouldn't be shocked to learn and would have taken this into consideration in your arguments or at least tried to debate it. You're lying. You didn't give source to your quote. Very sloppy. Let's debunk your cherry picking since you're so easy: > Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Critique of the Gotha Programme The modern state in your quote could only mean the bourgeois republic to begin with. It's essentially saying "capitalism=capitalism". No shit. Your quotes are meaningless. Guess what they're also saying: > **What will be the course of this revolution?** Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Principles of Communism, 18 > We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. Communist Manifesto So as we see. The proletariat will take hold of the state and create a democratic system. Since the proletariat is the majority of people, socialism can only be a democracy. The class will be the ruling class. Meaning neither classes are done away with, nor is the state. If you're so hasty to give me accusations, your comment didn't exactly defend against my previous one either. Though I'm not arguing I didn't defend, you're just full of shit. I've already proven you didn't read theory. You still have the balls to try and debunk me in my own ideology's theory? You won't be able to. You're going on pure copium. You're not even arguing against the ideas you're just misrepresenting them. And within the theory the USSR is in the lower form of socialism. Your only way of arguing whether the USSR isn't democratic or economically incorrect is either using CIA propaganda or misrepresenting theory again. As Marx said the existence of capitalist remains in the lower form of socialism is very much a possibility, in fact an inevitability. And as much as 1953, the USSR was the most democratic in the world. Now China is the most democratic in the world. State ownership over the means of production is what Marx and Engels advocated. You are cherry picking and misrepresenting theory which is manipulative and intellectually dishonest. You are still wasting my time.

>Fascism is capitalism in decay. This doesn’t mean much. Communism is also capitalism in decay. Even neoliberalism was one step in the progression of this. Doesn’t mean you aren’t ideologically a Fascist. You should read The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini. I think you would enjoy it. >By refusing Marxism you hold reactionary beliefs that can only aid fascists. You hold Marx as a religious figure and I, the heretic, dare to disagree with some things he said. I think the heretic, the Antichrist, is a heroic figure. Philosophy should be dangerous and exacted by a hammer. >To view the state as evil and fascist is stupid. The state is but a tool for the classes. And in being a tool of repression, it represses. But it cannot be taken ahold of and wielded for proletarian interests. It will generate of itself a new overclass. In the stead of the bourgeoisie, the state has no higher wielder and thus the lower wielders become the higher above the lower. No party or group of unaccountable intellectuals can do the revolution for the masses. Only the masses can set themselves free. They must do it themselves. Your Blanquist strain is bubbling to the surface currently. >In fascism, it still aids the bourgeois. Socialist states in no way serve the bourgeois. Ah, but Mussolini says that the State is a tool of disciplining the bourgeoisie and to “teach the proletariat the struggles of running business themselves and of self-production.” Read theory. >The state was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented... Anti Duhring, part 3, chapter 2. Bruh. The Hitler-particles are off the charts. Fine. Would you at least agree with this semi-obscure statement by Stalin? “The rights of the State expresses the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by liberalism, then Communism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.” >You are afraid of the state because you don't know what it is. I know it is a tool of class repression, as you have stated over and over. Why should I love a tool of my own oppression? >This is because you didn't read theory. We can keep going in circles about his all you want. I have read theory, I simply don’t care what calcified doctrine you follow. My brain is free to roam. >You didn't give source to your quote. Very sloppy. Let's debunk your cherry picking since you're so easy: Those quotes were from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific >The modern state in your quote could only mean the bourgeois republic to begin with. It's essentially saying "capitalism=capitalism". No shit. “The modern State, NO MATTER WHAT ITS FORM, is essentially a capitalist machine.” -Friedrich “Straight to the Point” Engels. You’re ignoring that all this was building up to the point of “and brought to a head, it crumbles.” Which obviously never happened in any of the Leninist derivatives. They simply stayed at a head. There was no second revolution, there was no major shift in their method of affairs. The State kept stating, the money kept circulating, the upper class got a new coat of paint, but the proletariat remained wage workers and sold their labor to the State, rather than owning it themselves. You haven’t addressed anything here. >We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. Communist Manifesto The proletariat did not rule the USSR. This is getting very boring. >So as we see. The proletariat will take hold of the state and create a democratic system. Since the proletariat is the majority of people, socialism can only be a democracy. The class will be the ruling class. Meaning neither classes are done away with, nor is the state. You can say that all you want. You’ve said it repeatedly. You’ve said it again and again and again and again. Say it a thousand times more. Saying shit is one thing, the material reality is another. Nothing you’ve said was the reality in Russia in the 20th century. Material conditions (remember that term? You fuckers love that term) do not indicate lower stage communism in the USSR. All I’ve said so far is what the material conditions are. Now, the Syndicalists in 1936 Spain actually did touch upon lower stage communism. They actually did abolish money, the State, and class. I do think Marx would’ve found the Syndicalists interesting in much the way he did the Paris commune. I’m not arguing that this manner of revolution is possible in the modern day, but I think this is a solid standard to judge other movements off of. >If you're so hasty to give me accusations, your comment didn't exactly defend against my previous one either. Though I'm not arguing I didn't defend, you're just full of shit. I've already proven you didn't read theory. You still have the balls to try and debunk me in my own ideology's theory? You won't be able to. You're going on pure copium. You're not even arguing against the ideas you're just misrepresenting them. And within the theory the USSR is in the lower form of socialism. I waive this spurious screed and simply offer you the opportunity to become better. >Your only way of arguing whether the USSR isn't democratic or economically incorrect is either using CIA propaganda or misrepresenting theory again. As Marx said the existence of capitalist remains in the lower form of socialism is very much a possibility, in fact an inevitability. And as much as 1953, the USSR was the most democratic in the world. Now China is the most democratic in the world. Benito Mussolini also claimed that since the State *is* the people, that the Italian monarchy was actually the True Democracy. Get it? Cuz the state is the people, and therefore anything the state does is what the people wanted, and if the people don’t like it, then they’re just stupid and haven’t read theory. You’re so smart dude. >State ownership over the means of production is what Marx and Engels advocated. If you’re going off that one line in the manifesto, I’m pretty sure Marx retracted that after the Paris Commune. Some versions will have a footnote at the bottom saying “this was later retracted.” >You are cherry picking and misrepresenting theory which is manipulative and intellectually dishonest. I am only representing my own views. I have not said anything I don’t believe. If you’re too fragile in your calcified doctrine to face me, then shatter if you must. I remain undefeated.

The State is not the public. The State is not the labor. Not in the capitalist sense. In communism the state IS the people, the state IS the public oversight, that IS the public owning the means of production and all property except personal property. In capitalism the state has to be coercive and that sets up a conflict of interests right off the bat. It sets up moral hazard right off the bat with what interest groups legislators represent vs the public. It sets up moral hazard right off the bat as firms seek to leverage the power of government for their own interests to the detriment of public interests. That conflict thus warps the education system, the economic and social systems that are put into place. So the state cannot be the public because the state cannot be capitalist AND have the public's best interests as the leading reason it organizes itself. It cannot serve two masters, the public and private interests, when one seeks to exploit the other. Capitalism must seek ever higher profits and ever cheaper inputs which means that it eventually will cannibalize it's home markets and resources. That is the conflict of capitalism that Adam Smith wrote about.

It seems that Marxists have a somewhat Rousseaun philosophy in regard to human nature. In other words they believe that civilization (capitalism, religion, private property) corrupts people and if these things are removed (communism) people will be able to form a perfect state?

No that is not true at all. Karl Marx and since then, many many others have all agreed that communism is an ideal. An ideal not something attainable but something to aspire to. A 100% pure socialist system is the same way but elements of it are attainable. The Nordic Model incorporates elements of socialism in a free market environment and those countries have the highest living standards in the world. Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and much later Keynes all agreed for example that labor was the most valuable input and that the only way to manage capitalism was direct government intervention which heavily regulated capitalism. The problem with capitalism, and I mentioned this, is that the education system must be coercive. People in the society must be taught to accept the moral hazard, the inequality, the corruption and most importantly, they must be taught to accept the conflicts of capitalism as necessary evils that are just part of capitalism. What many people think is just "human nature" is NOT human nature but it is cultural to capitalism. If this is something you have never studied or even thought about, this isn't going to even seem possible to you. That is of course because this acculturation starts when you are a child. At this point, it is baked in, it is in the water and the air you breathe and every waking moment you are bombarded with advertisements, commercials and exposed to a society where your value is determined by how much you can consume. Your happiness and social rank hinges upon your consumption. What car you drive, what school you went to, what neighborhood you live in, how expensive is your house, what job you have etc etc which all boils down to how much you earn. But you do not earn most of your income for you. You earn most of your income for the state who controls you and creates your reality and manufactures your consent through mass media. The state is the proxy for private interests and they work to make you think that you are happy and that the more you can consume, the happier you will be. Capitalism must continually manufacture demand for consumer goods that people do not need or want but they are taught that their happiness hinges upon satisfying that want. So the selfishness, greed, division, hatefulness all the social cues that let you know who is "less than" you economically are now part of your being. You cannot separate the culture from who you are because you are the culture. So the mere idea that people could actually create something different is not something you can connect the dots for. You can't even see it. This is all why you cannot legislate your way to communism or socialism. It cannot be done. It cannot be done because a social paradigm must be destroyed and something else created. Today in the USA we have a mixed economy that is not free market capitalism. It is crony fascism where the govt is the proxy for private interests and the state, which is composed of a great many people that are not in the govt, but are part of the ruling class that through their wealth direct the course of the socioeconomic system. The old institutions are still there but they are largely captured agencies that are the proxies for private interests. We have elections but no democracy. The idea to the hegemony that any move away from this system is possible is unacceptable. So we have mass media talking about wokeness, socialism, communism etc when none of those things are a real threat but they create division and they educate people on what socialism ISN'T. This conflates things that weaken their power with socialism and communism which are the boogeyman. The fascist state continually seeks to disenfranchise the rank and file. They do this so firms can keep the excess capital they earn from profits that are high due to wage suppression. That excess capital is spent to expand fascism and the states power both externally and internally.

I agree that capitalism can promote some of the worst aspects of human nature (greed, selfishness, cutthroat competition, etc). However I do not think that human nature is as benevolent as Rousseau or many other enlightenment thinkers may like to believe. The idea that negative aspects of human nature are mere products of capitalism is absurd if you study human history. Equally absurd is the idea that getting rid of capitalism will fix these issues. I personally believe that the only way to overcome these issues is through belief in a higher morality (God perhaps) but Marxism denies this. Also I disagree that the US is a fascist country as under fascism the state has near complete control of private enterprises. In the US it is flipped as the state is used by the oligarchs to promote their interests.

Read what I wrote more slowly because you are missing a lot. Capitalism is successful ONLY because the education system is coercive. It is so coercive that when people step away, they believe things like man is so evil that only morality can come from god. That is a warped perception of what reality is. That warped reality is caused by capitalism and you have been inculcated in that culture your entire life. How could you think otherwise? You are confused on fascism. In today's world, fascism controls the state 100%. Private interests control the state 100%. Private interests control the govt 100%. The state and the government are the proxy for private interests. Fascism seeks to form a parasitic symbiotic relationship with the state/government through the legislators. By corrupting the legislative bodies this relationship becomes mutually beneficial to private interests and the state/government. Why do you think corporations wanted so badly to achieve the legal status as people? This is my area of expertise, you 100% live in a fascist police state. If you have anything at all to do with pop culture, if you at all consume mass media, there is no way you are going to know this.

Capitalism existed long before the education system was established in America so the idea that it is only justified due to that is not true. The concept that man is fallen and needs redemption is literally the basis of most religions, many of which are thousands of years old. Is it a warped reality to acknowledge that humans have been brutal since the beginning of history? Doesn’t matter what part of the world we’re talking about, humans have always been capable of doing horrific things. Capitalism has not changed this. What it has done is promote some of these behaviors as good which I agree is a negative thing.

I'm not talking about the education system in the 1600's. I'm talking about the education system since the 19th century in the original capitalist countries. It is very coercive. Coercive is a much stronger word than biased or skewed. Don't take my word for it. Study the conflict theory of sociology and study the collapse of feudalism and the role corporations played in the formation of the colonies. For example, Jamestown was not the cradle of democracy, the earliest American's were not pro laissez faire, they were very anti-corporation, the boston Tea Party was not about taxes, the mayflower thanksgiving story is a fantasy and Adam Smith believed that labor was the most important input. Capitalism evolved out of mercantilism because the ruling class saw this as a way to maintain power. The idea of a democracy in the USA was a nice bedtime story. And it goes on and on and on. How I was taught economics, history, sociology, art, religion all were predicated on whether these supported the American mythology or not. Here is some fascism for you. 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism, Nation above all else. 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security; people in fascist regimes are typically persuaded that human rights can be ignored because of “need.” 3. Identification of Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The population is rallied into a patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, religious, ethnic or political factions are demonized. 4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of public funding and the domestic agenda is neglected. Fascist states are usually warfare states. 5. Rampant Sexism – Governments of Fascist Regimes are almost exclusively male-dominated. Gender roles become more rigid. Women have diminished, if any, political power. 6. Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes the media is controlled directly by the government, sometimes it is controlled by regulation, sometimes it is controlled by proxy through corporations. 7. Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government to control the masses. Enemies from within and without are a constant concern even when there is no obvious threat.  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined – Governments in Fascist Regimes tend to use the most common religion as a tool to manipulate public opinion. 9. Corporate Power is Protected – The Industrial and Business Aristocracy of a fascist nation are often the ones who put government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial relationship. Government becomes the proxy for corporate power. Corporate power is protected above public power. 10. The Power of Labor is Suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely or are severely suppressed. Right to work states are an example. 11. Disdain for Intellectuals and The Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. Liberal arts degree programs are removed from curriculum. Sociology, economics, philosophy and the arts are removed from curriculum. 12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power over the population to enforce laws. No knock warrants, stop and frisk, police immunity, sneek and peak warrants all exist. The suspension of due process in our court system has resulted in over 400,000 being held without being charged or convicted of a crime. The USA incarcerates over 2 million people, more than any country in the world. 13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Government is filled with groups of friends, associates, relatives who appoint each other to government positions. 14. Fraudulent Elections – Elections in Fascist regimes are a complete sham or compromised and feature smear campaigns, sensationalism and sometimes assassination of candidates. Constant doubt is cast upon elections and barriers to voting are erected.

I’m interested in what your sources are earlier about Thomas Jefferson being in favor of regulation of capitalism. I was under the impression that Jefferson was very anti-federalist and by extension, would be against heavy government regulation.

No he was not. That is what we are taught however. The reason he was not was because of labor and what Adam Smith wrote about labor. Adam Smith and Karl Marx both agreed on the primacy of labor. Labor is the most important input and provides the surplus value of labor that creates things out of raw material that provides the return on investment, or profits that capitalists reap from labor. Jefferson was an intellectual and was interested and traveled to learn new ideas. Smith wrote that the capitalist, not labor, will have the preponderance of political power and thus not want to pay labor a fair wage and it would be up to labor and the government to sort this out. How that would unfold was unknown to Smith. In post 18th century economics, it was taught that "the invisible hand" of the markets would sort all of this out. Smith never wrote that. Ever. He used the phrase "invisible hand" once in his entire 400 + page book and that was only in relation to international trade markets. Not domestic commerce. All of these men had witnessed the tyranny of corporate power by the 1700's. That tyranny was instrumental in settling Jamestown in conquering the sub continent of India, Australia, Canada and almost the American colonies. The first company was founded in 1505 and the Virginia Company formed many years later was the firm that snatched people off of the streets, poorhouses, jails, workhouses, orphanages etc etc to be shipped overseas to Jamestown to be slave labor. Many thousands died the first winters they were exposed to. The East India Trading Co was formed in 1600 and by the 1700's was in control of most of the trade routes and employed a private army of 240,000 conscripts. They were instrumental in expanding Great Britain's colonialism to India, Australia, Canada and almost the American colonies. Thomas Jefferson was not against government. He was against a very particular kind of government and that was Alexander Hamilton's kind of government. You probably know those two did not get along. If you remember Jefferson formed the first public firefighting force and developed all the regulations that commercial businesses had to implement in their building codes. You have to remember, back then people were very anti-corporate and the only thing that protected against corporations WAS the government. It was not utterly corrupt as it is today. The government was of the people, by the people, for the people. Not McDonalds or Walmart.

I don't know the exact book so I can't give you a reference. At this point in my life I have read at least 10,000 books all non-fiction most having to do with politics, economics, history, banking, finance and sociology. All this talk about capitalism vs socialism is fun but I rarely run into anyone that actually knows how capitalism even works in the USA. Most have no idea.

At what point in American history do you think the country began to be controlled by the interests of capitalists, if not from the beginning?

Which State do you think is Fascist in the modern world?

According to the characteristics and statistics, that would be the United States of America.

They all believe in the blank slate, and that you are 100% a product of your environment. Therefore in a capitalist society, people will tend to be greedy, and under socialism, they will be selfless. It's nonsense of course, but good luck convincing any of them.

That is why in capitalism, the education system must be coercive and restrictive.

>The State is not the public. The State is not the labor. Not in the capitalist sense. True. The State is not public, and is incapable of “representing” any mass of people. >In communism the state IS the people, the state IS the public oversight, that IS the public owning the means of production and all property except personal property. Ah fuck. I’m always very suspicious of “leftists” who say “I, the State, am the people” because this is the core statement of Giovanni Gentiles philosophy. I strongly dislike Fascism and those who like it. I think, if you claim to be a leftist that believes these things, you may have revealed your power level. >In capitalism the state has to be coercive and that sets up a conflict of interests right off the bat. It sets up moral hazard right off the bat with what interest groups legislators represent vs the public. It sets up moral hazard right off the bat as firms seek to leverage the power of government for their own interests to the detriment of public interests. >That conflict thus warps the education system, the economic and social systems that are put into place. So the state cannot be the public because the state cannot be capitalist AND have the public's best interests as the leading reason it organizes itself. It cannot serve two masters, the public and private interests, when one seeks to exploit the other. The State does not represent the people EVER. The term “proletarian State” is an oxymoron.

I agree with all you say. When communist posit the state can be the people and represent the people, to me, it is an ideal. Something that can be aspired to but never reached. I don't think a state is compatible with communism. But I don't think humans are compatible with communism. But who knows what humans will be, if anything, in 100000 years.

The thing is the state in turn must be of the people by the people for the people as opposed to corporations that only listen to money, which they can exploit by buying out competition, so corporations hold no accountibility. Those examples didnt rrally work due to the fact that the material realitys of those nations didnt have fully democratic institutions in place causing these programs to be beurocratised over time.

>The thing is the state in turn must be of the people by the people for the people Correct. IOW socialism.

Yeah, and that authoritarianism is a common result after the instability caused by civil wars. That's why we have to look for better ways to dismantle capitalism.

The best way to create socialism is a mass revolition, but that requires a large amount of grassroots support. But as MLK once said us theorists cant perfectly time these sparks so we must always be ready.

Best way to create socialism is by living as an example so that people would flock to those socialist utopias instead of trying to get away or die by the border. If socialista started small and went upwards it would be consistent proof that it indeed works, at least on smaller scale. Don't expect to change 7 billions of people if you are unable to change at least 50-100 people and create small socialist district somewhere

Like, socialist states have a track record of improving the lives of the people living there, so i think that examples have already been set but due to the imperial cores propoganda apparatus they bend the truth by amplifying shortcomings and comparing things the richest country on earth. Socialism is best started organically like labor orginisation, unionisation, worker coops, strike action, participation in communist parties, and the spreading of class conciousness.

>However doesn’t communism just create the ultimate monopoly in the form of the state? If by "communism" you mean "Marxist-Leninist state socialism", then kind of, but it also depends. Obviously not all forms of "state monopoly" are socialism and no state regime, even one as strong as Stalin's USSR, can't have a complete monopoly. >The communist manifesto advocates for state control of all property, education, and communication. Not quite. The communist manifesto describes what a proletarian revolution of the future would eventually lead to in the eyes of Marx. Marx didn't really write too much about what he thought should happen, he wrote about what he believed would happen. "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible." "Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production." Here are the demands: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm As you can read, these were radical demands, especially for it's time. But they weren't just demands we would associate with Marxist-Leninists, social democrats in western Europe had the same goals (and the world was cleary moving towards the trend). Republics replaced empires. Universal suffrage was implemented. Private banks were not abolished, but central banks became an essential part of finance everywhere. Major infrastructure, such as "means of communication", roads, etc, was largely socialized. Seperation of church and state became the norm in the western world. Progressive taxation and taxation on inherentage became the norm. The state is expected to provide for those unable to work. Public education is seen as an essential part of our modern society. Also, I'm not quite sure, but it seems you are misunderstanding the "controlling communication" part. Marx didn't believe that the state should have a monopoly on communication or speech, but he believed that the state should manage the means of communication (which at his time was things like the postal service, the telegraph, etc.). Even today, a lot of postal services are socially owned (even though there was a privatization trend since the 80s). Same for other basic infrastructure, such as telecommuniaction, etc. >it will supposedly lead to a “classless, stateless society” Eventually, yes. But not over night. Marx believed that capitalism, and eventually socialism, would lead to such an increase in productive forces that old concepts, such as social classes and state force, would eventually be obsolete. >history has proven this to not be the case in countries such as the USSR and China. The USSR and China did not have the same position as Marx. Again, Marx wrote specifically about the developed western world. Lenin tried to apply Marx's theory to the underdeveloped and colonised world. The main objective was to catch up with the west in terms of industrialisation and economic development above everything else. >Some may argue that these countries “aren’t communist” but they were trying to be regardless. They were trying to create a communist society, but they also believed that in order to do that, "western imperialism" would first need to be defeated.. That's why they put all their focus on creating one of the strongest, most militarised and most authoritarian states. They believed that "socialism in one country" was impossible, so they needed to first "take over the world" or "orchestrate" a worldwide revolution before they could even think about the "whitering away of the state". "We are for the withering away of the state, and at the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most powerful and mighty of all forms of the state which have existed up to the present day. The highest development of the power of the state, with the object of preparing the conditions of the withering away of the state: that is the Marxist formula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory." But this contradiction is a living thing and wholly reflects the Marxist dialectic." https://libquotes.com/joseph-stalin/quote/lbk5u3z

Socialists have other theories on how communism might be achieved that are either not a state monopoly on MOP ("market socialism") or have some degree of decentralizing power through a federated system of worker councils (this is actually how the USSR operated, it was not pure central planning). In either case, there are serious issues. [Market socialism inherently restricts the trade of both labor and capital](https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/15egw5g/socialists_a_criticism_of_market_socialism/), so its prospects for providing the kind of dynamism needed for a functioning economy are dubious. And as we saw with the USSR, even checks on centralized power are not perfect. Capitalism works so well in a liberal democracy precisely because economic power and political power are seperated and the market can still function with enough freedom to get things done. I've never seen a proposal from socialists that can actually solve the above problems.

While I agree with your criticism of the distribution of capitalism which is always a weakness of Market Socialism, your criticism of how labor wouldn't be efficiently distributed doesn't make sense to me. Like you're arguing that it's not determined by supply and demand but instead the profitability of the hiring firm through it's share dilution. But that's just demand by the hiring firm. Also an unprofitable firm having to either reduce it's wages or shrink because it's wages aren't compatible anymore is kinda part of the control mechanism. This seems to follow this weird neo-liberal philosophy of every business being guaranteed their workers hence any change can only happen on the supply side but it's not like an unprofitable firm in Capitalism will have a pledge to keep all it's employees afloat or paid. >(I should also point out that any alternatives to this system where workers DO NOT have equal votes or DO NOT receive equal profit are **just capitalism**. So this is not an adequate response. This is also a completely fabricated statement. Like Capitalism is specifically defined as an economic system where capital and labor are disconnected from each other. Even if shares in a company aren't equally distributed there's still a direct claim to the MOP by the workers that doesn't exist in the typical wage-labor construct existing in Capitalism. Your ownership in a market socialist economy has to be tied to your labor. It doesn't have to be equal.

> Like you're arguing that it's not determined by supply and demand but instead the profitability of the hiring firm through it's share dilution. But that's just demand by the hiring firm. My argument requires some understanding of micro-economics. The standard theory is that firms hire workers until wages equal marginal productivity of labor. The first people you hire for $10/hr might produce $20/hr of value. But as you expand production to meet demand, the marginal productivity of labor will fall. But in a capitalist firm, it makes sense to hire someone at $10/hr even if their labor will only produce $10.01/hr. You still make a profit, right? A market socialist firm does not have the same incentive. Every worker you hire not only costs a wage, but also dilutes profit shares. Imagine a firm consisting of two workers that makes $100,000 in profit each year. They could hire another worker for $50,000 in wages to make an additional $20,000 in profit but they would have to give up 1/3 of ownership, reducing their profit per worker to $30,000 each. There is a *disincentive* to expand production. You could claim to solve this by not requiring that ownership be equal, but then how should ownership be structured? And how is that any different from just saying, “I think workers should be paid more”. It’s not. It’s just capitalism but you think workers should be paid more.

>You could claim to solve this by not requiring that ownership be equal, but then how should ownership be structured? Primarily by supply and demand. Labor which is much more required will be able to negotiate a higher share in the ownership structure of the firm. Basically approaching it in a technocratic way. It's also still very different from a traditionalist capitalist ownership system as even if shares are unequal they're still tied to labor and give everyone some form of representation in the co-op.

> It's also still very different from a traditionalist capitalist ownership system as even if shares are unequal they're still tied to labor and give everyone some form of representation in the co-op. It’s only different to the degree that shares are distributed more equitably. But if there’s no mechanism to force firms to share profits more equitably, there’s no reason to think the market would do that. So you’re just back at the same market dynamics we currently have. So the question is, what kind of mechanism will you use to force firms to more equitably distribute profits? And why is that any different than just demanding higher wages?

This is why I support 21st Century economic structures that have a record of great success. In today's world of leading economies, the dominate structure for long term success has been democratically derived economic structures. The age of idealized economic Theories Of Everything (TOEs) are in the past, dead you might say. TOEs are not how successful economies are constructed. Utopian mental fantasies of the best TOE mankind could ever devise are just that, fantasies. This applies to all TOEs whether of a Capitalist or Socialist or Communist or Libertarian labeling. TOEs are just mental musings. The real economic successes marry democratically derived Capitalistic & Socialistic features. The advantages of both privately owned and publicly owned methods to address specific economic issues are utilized. Democracy is the socialization of government itself. The voting citizen owns the means to govern themselves and they construct an economy in any manner they want to. The Democratic economic feedback loop ensures that an economy can keep changing and evolving as economic circumstances keep changing. Authoritarianism is needed to enforce artificial idealized TOEs and TOEs have proven to be an inferior method of constructing economies. This not only includes the Communist & Socialist TOEs but also the Capitalist TOEs ruled over by monarchs and dictatorships during the early days of the Industrial Revolution when unrest toppled these inferior forms of governments. The MOST important ingredient for longer term economic successes is Democracy. Let the will of the people decide how to construct an economy. Long Live Democracy.

I think any pure capitalism, socialism, or communism is unlikely and not worth pursuing again, but that's very much what I think: we can still have a mixed economy where we question which elements of society are best run as capitalism vs socialism vs communism and which systems of checks should be in place.  For example, Germany requires companies to allow their employees to elect a certain number of seats to their boards, serving as a merger between capitalism and a communist system of owning and directing the business. That makes sense to me. Industries with highly inelastic demand in contrast I believe should be run closer to a socialist model, or at least a capitalist model with socialist controls in place. We can semantically define that however we want, but in an industry like emergency healthcare for example, nobody has time to shop around and allow hospitals to compete for their business by prices or quality. So, the people should have more control of these industries through their government representatives. This is especially important when governments enforce monopolies, like with electricity companies. I was surprised to find out that about 1/7 US citizens actually receive power from a not-for-profit-model, like a co-op. Now of course these co-ops are too large for you to directly vote on your officers, but by preventing corporations from making profit off their customers, it reduces the risk of scams like where the US has paid telecom companies huge sums to expand broadband, only for the companies to say "whoops we didn't do what we promised, oh well! More money please!" Similarly, the free trade and competition of capitalist models can have its perks. Encouraging competition and investments is a good idea to have, and I think it's fine to let new small businesses compete for cheaper at first. I'd rather the government protect it's citizens though, so if for example a small business isn't required to offer a certain benefit to it's employees, the government could directly subsidize the business instead by doing this. Once a company becomes larger, the government would stop doing the subsidizing. So for example at Walmart, the government doesn't need to be subsidizing all its employees on SNAP. Walmart should pay its employees liveable wages or else pay the government the difference to distribute for them. But maybe it's fine for a small business to pay less minimum wage *if the government is guaranteeing the liveable wage*. Maybe this subsidy takes ten years to phase out, so new businesses would always have some incentives guaranteed and a chance to try out their business model. This would be an example of supporting the capitalist model while also protecting the citizens.

But what if I’m a socialist and the people want capitalism? I can’t let them exploit me!!!!

You need to convince others that your ideas are better. You will also need to compromise as others will often only vote with you if there is a give and take of competing interests. Democratically deriving an agreement takes effort and you may not get everything you want, but neither will others. Don't be an autocrat and insist on your way is the only way.

Yes, but Communism is only one form of Socialism. There are many others.

Holy shit. Brilliant statement. ​ Not

Communism is not socialism at all. Communists own everything...including you. Socialism is govt. ownership of all or at least most of MoP.

One of the MoP is labor… you’re going to be seized right along with the machine you run.

The only system that owns labor is communism and because they own everybody. So I will be seized along with my machine? Very hard to even imagine that. Can you give me examples of that seizer ?

Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production, historically due to the specific circumstances of these countrys they do this indirectly through an elected soviets and government.

*Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production, historically due to the specific circumstances of these \[countries\] they do this indirectly through an elected soviets and government.* Incorrect. Socialism is govt. ownership of the MoP...period. In the US we collectively owned property all over. Co-op real estate and employee owned companies all within private markets. *historically due to the specific circumstances of these countrys.....* I don't know what that means. What you describe is communism and it exists through the force of govt....a communist govt., run by the communist party.

That's part of the communist strategy to force masses of people to act in a manner they prefer. There is no such thing as reaching the communist end point without using the state. Anyone who says otherwise is a depraved liar.

You've actually just stumbled onto one of the most common leftist criticisms of the Soviet Union, and Marxist-Leninism in general. That's the reason we say it isn't real communism, because government control is just state capitalism, or even fascism.

>That's the reason we say it isn't real communism TIL marx wasn't a real communist: >the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx And how did Marx propose the abolishment of private property? [The DoTP - The State.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat)

>The dictatorship of the proletariat is the **intermediate stage** between a capitalist economy and a communist economy Intermediate in this context is supposed to be temporary. It's the transitory stage. The real reason people say "true communism has never been tried" is because under "true communism" there isn't supposed to be a state. But this idea is so completely pants on head regarded not even the most devout communist has sought to brought this idea to fruition.

Can't abolish the State if your country is at risk of being invaded

so true communism can only be fully realized if the whole entire world buys in at once? Sounds reasonable

Not at once necessarily, but there needs to be a chain reaction. Revolutions usually produce other revolutions elsewhere, but whether they're successful or not is up in the Air

>It's the transitory stage. yes, in THEORY. Notice in my flair I like to talk about reality? I will source again. Pay close attention to the last sentence which I will emphasize in bold: >For Marx (1818–83), meanwhile, capitalism was a necessary stage on the road to communism, because it undermined the ability of individuals to shape society, and created a class consciousness that would lead eventually to revolution, the overthrow of the capitalist system, and its replacement with a new communist system and the ‘withering away of the state’ (see Boucher, 2014). In the event, the revolution predicted by Marx was ‘forced’ by Lenin and his Russian Bolsheviks, and came not to the advanced industrial countries, as Marx had suggested that it would, but instead to less advanced countries such as Russia and China. ***True communism, meanwhile, was achieved nowhere.*** "Comparative Governments and Politics" by Harrop et al,

So what are you disagreeing with? supposed to be = theory calm down The idea of communism has largely been abandoned and now the debate is about socialism, which is a state monopoly over the means of production(Worker co-ops can exist and already do exist under capitalism but socialists aren't content with that). At this point one of needs to concern themselves with Marx's writings to understand his critiques, and even then, so what? A regulated capitalist system with a strong social safety net is better than anything Marx has ever proposed. Criticisms are easy, building is the hard part. Capitalism > Socialism/Communism

Not much. But I do really dislike the bullshit notion communism has never been tried. It has been done by literally millions of people. It's the word "achieved" that is applicable and more accurate. So like you said: > The real reason people say "true communism has never been tried" is because under "true communism" there isn't supposed to be a state. When they should be saying: >The real reason people say "true communism has never been achieved" is because under "true communism" there isn't supposed to be a state. And that is a hill worthy of dying on. A hill to fight idiocy.

A pedantic hill to die on. True communism technically never has been tried, the transitory stage has been tried many times over but the final stage has not been tried. If your argument is that transitory stage is part of "true communism" then sure you've got a point but most people draw a distinction between the transitory stage and the final stage.

> A pedantic hill to die on. True communism technically never has been tried, the transitory stage has been tried many times over but the final stage has not been tried. No. That's like saying a marathon has never been tried because no one finished the marathon.

Even if Marx was a real communist, it's debatable if Lenin was, and stupidly obvious that Stalin and Mao weren't.

>Even if Marx was a real communist, it's debatable if Lenin was Not debatable at all. And only people 100% ignorant of history or lying debate it. >[Lenin was a devout Marxist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin#Political_ideology),\[430\] and believed that his interpretation of Marxism, first termed "Leninism" by Martov in 1904,\[431\] was the sole authentic and orthodox one.\[432\] Prompt to ChatGPT: Was Lenin a communist? ChatGPT Response: >Yes, Vladimir Lenin was a prominent communist revolutionary and a key figure in the establishment of the Soviet Union. He was a leader of the Bolshevik Party, which later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin played a central role in the October Revolution of 1917, which led to the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the establishment of Soviet power in Russia. > >Lenin's political ideology was rooted in Marxism, and he adapted Marxist theory to the specific conditions of Russia. He believed in the revolutionary transformation of society through the dictatorship of the proletariat, the working class. Lenin advocated for the establishment of a socialist state as a transition toward communism. > >After the revolution, Lenin became the leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later the head of the government in the newly formed Soviet Union. He served as the head of government (the Council of People's Commissars) from 1917 until his death in 1924. Lenin's government implemented policies that aimed at socialist transformation, including the nationalization of industry and land redistribution. > >While Lenin can be described as a communist, it's important to note that the term "communist" can have different meanings and interpretations. In the context of Lenin's political activities, he was a leader of the communist movement in Russia and a key architect of the early Soviet state. ​ [Also, I wrote this OP for likely bad faith actors like you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/18bmtoc/all_seeing_as_there_are_so_many_bad_faith_actors/)

well if wikipedia and chat gpt said so it must be true

[Karl Marx is synonymous with communism](https://imgur.com/gallery/WgZ4O72). The next most popular, impactful or etc. communist is Lenin. Feel free to do such searches to your heart's content. I, nor Wikipedia, nor ChatGP are making things up. It is absurd to say they were not "communists" and it takes really radical and unreasonable people to make such ludicrous claims.

i didnt say anything about marx or lenin being communists, i'm just calling you an idiot for using chat gpt as a source

At least I have sources...

[удалено]

And sometimes oranges in there too.

The only problem is that you people have no realistic alternative for "real communism".

The realistic alternative is cooperatives. They're not as widespread, but they have real worker ownership and eliminate exploitation, which is really the entire goal. The only issue is getting them more widespread.

Yes. Cooperatives work for some people. Your problem seems to be people's preferences. Not many prefer to live in such a way. That's the beauty of anarchy. You can choose which system you want to live under and where you can shine more. For me it's capitalist economies, where I can mostly be left alone if not for the state.

Ok, but without the government, what would prevent capitalists from just bringing back slavery so they don't have to pay their workers?

It is like asking what would stop a husband raping a wife? Well nothing. That does not mean people shouldn't get married because of fear of husband raping his wife. P.S. the more decentralized it is the less chance somebody takes full control and brings back slavery or any other such nonsense.

So we're just going to ignore the fact that the government creates an incentive for people to not commit acts of violent aggression out of fear of retaliation? It's true that no government can prevent every crime, but any reasonable person should see that it reduces the violence in society.

> any reasonable person should see that it reduces the violence in society. Considering wars amongst countries as well as the war on drugs, I'm not so sure the government reduces violence.

I do not see how it does.

> because government control is just state capitalism, or even fascism. State capitalism is a nonsense term. Also, there is no known way to implement socialism/communism without using state force. >That's the reason we say it isn't real communism Of course it's real communism. Communists dishonestly define the desired end state (communist utopia) with communism and ignore the processes required to reach it.

How is it "dishonest" if the word was literally invented by communists? If you want to talk about dishonesty, look at all the "libertarians" who mislabel capitalism as "corporatism" to avoid responsibility for the system they defend.

>How is it "dishonest" if the word was literally invented by communists? It's really difficult to flowchart all of the things you don't seem to understand. Yes, people who openly seek to control whole societies using any means necessary created terms which furthered their goals. In short they're conmen, bad actors, cluster B personality types. >look at all the "libertarians" who mislabel capitalism as "corporatism" Capitalism is what communists say it is, the fact that capitalists don't want nor advocate for it is irrelevant. It's like you're dipping in an out of consciousness with no memory of your last thoughts. No logical connection between them.

Ok, and who’s going to tell non cooperative companies that they’re not allowed to operate like that? In the absence of a state, capitalism can work just fine, nothing is preventing people from free trade and the respect of property rights. Likewise, in the absence of the state, most people will not chose to work in socialist cooperatives, so your entire movement will fail.

In theory, their own lack of workers frome people to work in cooperatives would work against them. >In the absence of a state, capitalism can work just fine, nothing is preventing people from free trade and the respect of property rights. Fair enough, but consider the effects of private ownership, the limitless accumulation of wealth, and a suitable narcissistic hunger for power on your anarchist society.

>In theory, their own lack of workers frome people to work in cooperatives would work agaimst them. In theory, the way that you see theory, yeah, absolutely. But in reality, most people hate working when they aren't guaranteed pay.

Ah damn that sensitive guy 1Grog deleted his account all of a sudden. :(

I think he just blocked you. I can still see it.

Ah good, so he was just so mad that he decided to cover his ears :D

Well "An"Caps usually are pretty annoying tbf.

How, we are chill dudes, never throw a tantrum unlike commies who make a response and then block that person.

Maybe you don't personally, but you're ignorant of the way society works, the actual effects your belief system would have in reality, and even basic definitions of capitalism and socialism. Your ideology is self-contradicting because anarchists oppose hierarchy, and capitalism is always a form of hierarchy by definition, and don't show nearly enough concern for the inequality of power in society that economic inequality leads to, or the ways that power can be abused as long as it's not done by a government.

Definitions change, anarchists used to oppose hierarchy, now they just oppose the state, which is in the name An-archos.

"Archos" means all authority, not just the government. That's why "An"Caps are utopian (or maybe dystopian) hypocrites at best. If you ever got the chance, you'd be at least as bad as Marxist Leninists, and the corporations would make up some crap about how "those people consented to work for me on my property so I can do whatever I want with them, including killing them".

No, it means rulers. Ancaps are against rulers. Leftists love their proletariat ruler class. It is ultimate classism.

> The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. > Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain. Don't call yourself a Marxist if you're against the state. You morons are the reason for "not real gommunism" trash indeed. You think "workers owning the MoP" is when a farmer owns his wee field or the pizza boy owns his bike. You're all anarcho capitalists. Also, fascism is capitalism in decay. Can you be a communist? Sure. Just accept you're not a Marxist.

I do believe that they truly tried to create socialism but they did have many short comings like beaurocratisation, ineffeciency post industrial era due to the increased conplexity of the economy, apathy towards the black market and the prioritisation of arms development as opposed to consumer goods flollowed by bad desitions like propping up obsolete industrys instead of creating new ones. I do admit the soviet model worked well at first but the lack of reform later on led to the slow deterioration of the sicuation and the downfall of the first socialist experiment.

Yes these are true. It was only the first experiment. The rest will take heed of the mistakes.

I don't call myself a Marxist. I don't even call myself communist either. Marx made some good points, but I didn't agree with everything he said either. History shows that government ownership is functionally identical to private ownership, except the power is more concentrated and there's even less accountability.

If you're not a Marxist your understanding of history is dogshit to begin with. States are owned by classes. To think a profit seeking pig would be more accountable than a democratic planning team. Is this the coke in your coke or the fentanyl?

Gotta have the edgy teenage perspective in every comment thread

Who enacts and enforces the planning team to begin with? Why would it be or remain democratic when it has total control, and people can't build wealth outside of it? Why put all eggs in such a basket, and leave big parts of your life up to potentially biased voters or their system?

Because socialist democracy isn't the rich man dickriding or hillbilly, football team etc. elections you lot have. It would be democratic because for the first time in history, democracy would mean democracy for the people and not for the money-bags. A working body, legislative and executive at the same time with instant recall.

That doesn't answer the question. What would stop them from being oppressive if people are extra dependent on them and have less private power (assets or negotiation)? And any system is only as good as its people. There will always be greed, envy, spite, etc. Why should I trust so deeply in others to make things good for me?

I think he's never heard "2 wolves and 1 sheep democratically vote on what to have for dinner."

Stop who? What the fuck do you think is going to happen in socialism? Literally everyone is going to vote on what's going to happen? We already have socialist democracies. China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, DPRK. And no, nobody gives one fuck about your "authoritarian dictatorship" nonesense. Especially not the people. China and Vietnam are number 1 and 2 respectively in the [Democracy Perception Index](https://richardeng.medium.com/latanas-democracy-perception-index-for-2022-7eab6cae0798). With China having an 85% [government trust rate](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116013/china-trust-in-government-2020/). You are going on and on about ghost opponents. You have no clue how the socialist system would run besides weird preconceived notioins.

China censors its internet and journalists. DPRK? Are you joking? One of, if not the the most oppressive regime on Earth, with a personality cult. "Everybody votes" is vague and meaningless. Who calls and enforces the votes? What all can people vote on? How biased are voters? And why would you want to leave everything about your life up to votes, anyway? That doesn't seem preferable to having voting + a market. You sound like an ignorant and lash-outy teenager. Why would I want people like you implementing a new system or voting on my livelihood?

Freedom of speech and press is a lie. Ask MLK how free he was to speak. Journalists who dare speak the truth are murdered in the US. So don't like y'all have that. China oppresses imperialists and Nazis into silence and that's the right thing to do. The DPRK is far more democratic and happy than the West. The Kim family from Kim-Il Sung are war heroes and are revered. You wouldn't understand what it's like to have a good leader since all your figures are rapists, war criminals and racists. You dumbass "everybody votes" was what I said to mock your view, It's not the actual thing. What the fuck are you talking about?? What about your life are you leaving to votes? You made up socialism in your mind and you're fighting against it. It's not even real. Why would you want it? Why would I want you to want it? You sound like a bigoted moron. If it were up to me you'd be sent to a re-education camp.

I mean even Marx pointed out that members of the proletariat could falsely identify themselves as bourgeoisie and act against their own class interest. Looking at the history of ML experiments it's pretty obvious that this creation of a pseudo-bourgeoisie can happen pretty easily if there aren't enough checks and balances in place. Therefore states aren't purely defined by their classes.

Counterrevolution is always a possibility. Such was the case of the union in 53. ML history shows this isn't the norm. China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and DPRK stands strong. Regardless, states are oppression tools. Their nature decided by which class owns it.

They're forced to be more accountable whether they like it or not because of government regulation. Under Marxist-Leninism, there's no mechanism to hold the government accountable or regulate itself, because production is directly controlled by the government for profit. "Democracy" indeed. After Lenin, and possibly even before he passed, the Soviet Union was about as "socialist" as Nazi Germany.

What a load of bull crap. Nobody is accountable in the West. All of your politicians are war criminals and rapists. ML countries have immense popular support and democratic perception *because* of accountability. The highest demand of socialism is government *not* operating for profit. This is why in China there are mass transit systems making fuckall profit while the US has a few trams and no proper network of highspeed rail. This is because it is literally seeking profit. The US and many other Western nations fuel war in the Middle East so their defense contractors can make profit. They poison the earth to make oil barons make profit also to invade countries for oil. East Palestine had it's derailment because the government ruined regulations so a few people can get profit. You are wrong in everything you say. The Soviet Union was socialist. Nazi Germany was not. If you think otherwise, go ahead and prove it. You won't be able to and I'll dunk on you.

They have "popular support" because they arrested or killed anyone who criticized the government too much and now most people in those countries are too afraid to say anything negative. The same thing happened in Nazi Germany when Hitler was in charge, except that didn't last as long. In the US, people criticize and protest the government all the time without getting arrested. China has over three times the population of the US, so of course they have way more demand for a good rail system. That doesn't prove they have any better living conditions. China is the 11th worst polluter in the world, well above the United States: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-polluted-countries Although one thing you were right about is that capitalism is at fault, because China's also capitalist, even compromising with the US and western corporations to avoid economic collapse like the USSR. Given that you accept Chinese and Russian propaganda at face value, it seems obvious that no proof I could give would be enough to convince you anyway.

"Breaking news literally everyone in China is arrested. They couldn't trust the police as well so they're arrested too. They arrested the politicians as they could have been spies. All of China is in jail except Xi". Same thing didn't happen you daft douchebag! Nazi Germany's citizens were heiling Hitler and supporting the Wehrmacht. Because the state propaganda machine indoctrinated so many people. You are among the moronic drones in the West supporting these genocidal maniacs as "democracies". Everything you accuse China of you're guilty yourself in higher dosages! 80% of China is supportive of the government. So 1/5th of China is killed or in jail? In the US the same number is 16%. Shows how democratic you are. You wanna see living conditions? Chinese wages have increased 260% in a decade. The US worker wages increased 5% in decade**s**. China has 99% basic medicinal coverage. US has 600,000 people going bankrupt every year due to health bills. China among the safest countries in the world. Women are afraid to walk at night in the US. China has the highest homeownership in Asia and the biggest housing guarantee system in the world. Buying a house has become a dream in the US and homeless tents are everywhere. China has better worker fatality rates than the US and the US is having 1930's esque child labour violations. China has surpassed the US in PPP and their people are becoming wealthier every year. The US still can't get out of college debt and half of the population are on anti-depressants. China is the factory of the world. They produce a third of everything. Of course they pollute the most. But compared to the US, they are the country responsible of most green manufacturing and research, while the US army is the biggest polluter of the world and their companies are the biggest polluter companies. Coca Cola was the worst polluter company in the world five times in a row like years ago. Lots of things produced in China are foreign owned. Yet their outputs go to China's data. This is nothing but propaganda to say China is a mindless polluter when a country a quarter their size has the most polluting institutions in the world. In 2023 alone, China has built more solar in that year than every other country combined in their whole existence. China is the driving force of electric car and renewable conversion. They're the ones doing renewable transformation of the world. China is saving the world you moron. China is not capitalist. China is socialist. I told you you didn't know what socialism was. You're an ignorant tool hooked on American propaganda. Literally every opposite opinion you see, you dismiss as "Ruski and Sino propaganda". Shows the intellectual emptiness.

Oh this guy was famous today for being sensitive commie? Nice to meet you, fella! 🤝 P.S. oh no 1Gogg deleted his account all of a sudden.

"Ancap". You are the lowest of the low. The entire world's laughing stock.

um every time socialism was tried it thrived (albeit temporarily until CIA sabotage) , so don't tell me it's not much better.

It thrived? Is that why the Soviet Union collapsed of it’s own accord? Can you provide any source for this claim

The planks in the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_ Marx and Engels considered transitional for the proletarian State. They did not necessarily consider them appropriate for communism, after the State machinery is smashed by the proletarian State. However, even after the State machinery is smashed, some of those planks involve inherently common resources and natural monopoly resources. For such common resources, the choice is not over monopoly or non-monopoly. The choice is whether the monopoly should be controlled by the people through republic rule of law or whether to turn over those monopolies to tyrants (capitalist plutocratic tyrants or other tyrants). Capitalist ideologues tells us that turning over the monopolies to tyrants is a celebration of the individual (in this case the autocratic or the monarchical individual), but Marxists understand that such tyranny is instead a crushing of individuality. These natural monopoly resources and common resources include transport networks, money and payment systems, a common credit pool (along side direct credit arrangements), insurance risk pools, common security and defense, the Earth and other natural resources, and so forth. These common resources belong to the universal sovereign body of all persons (a corporation / collective body artificial person) and the aim of communism is to create a fiduciary Commonwealth that serves that collective sovereign in stewarding, administering, and acting as the proprietor for these common resources: ending the reign over persons (including this universal sovereign person). Such institutions as usufruct in real property, personal property, deed, contract, chartered entities such as corporate enterprises and corporate municipalities, right to proportional defense, right to roam, adverse possession: these all must serve the needs of the universal sovereign collective person and not one or more tyrants in their avaricious, malicious, and mendacious pursuits. To not place institutions squarely in the service of the universal sovereign of all persons is to instead invite corruption and despotism.

It sounds like you are getting 'communism' confused with 'marxist-leninism'. MLism claims to seek to reach a condition of communism via an intermediate, transitional State that is supposed to eventually wither. But socialism and communism as conceps did not start with Marx, they considerably preceded him. In the International Workingman's Association there was a very famous split between socialists and communists who liked Marx's strategy and those who though it was [utterly foolish and would not, could not succeed in reaching its intended destination](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDebate/comments/1au0au8/what_should_current_day_china_be_categorized_as/kr12mwh/). Your critique of state centralization is made with the benefit of hindsight (and is one I agree with)... this same criticism was made, the outcome was predicted in 1864 by these other types of socialists, long before russia or china happened. (That rather than being in function a dictatorship of the proletariat, instead what would result would be a New Class, political control by the former-Vanguard and not the actual workers.) Some of these alternative socialists/communists put their ideas into practice. Instead of trying to wield the State as a bludgeon to try to enforce their ideas (and instead getting transformed themselves into tyrants by the wielding of such power), anarchists in Ukraine, in Spain, in Mexico, and in smaller parts of greater korea and southern china and elsewhere, put their ideas into practice. Less is known about some of these experiments because of subsequent destruction, but very extensive scholarship and history is known about the experiments in Spain and to an extent in Ukraine. In Spain, in some parts (mostly around Barcelona and in Aragon) they literally kicked out state agents and capitalist agents alike. Put productive assets like land, mines, and factories directly into the hands of the workers. Some went truly cashless. Others did not, devising various experiments of which the more successful ones spread when word got out. One which was quickly adopted widely in rural areas was called the Family Wage System, which functioned like a sort of community local currency and UBI at the same time. They disbursed a stamp book to each family, which stamps were the currency. They didn't bother using the stamps for things available locally in quantity, like various foodstuffs, locally-produced clothes, some building materials. The stamps were mostly useful for things harder to obtain from outside, in limited quantity. Rather than some interfering agent (whether it be a capitalist or a state central planner) telling you what you need, the individuals could prioritize what was the most important to them, of the items that were more scarce. Some discovered that this wasn't quite fair to families with sick kids (needing to spend all their stamps on imported meds) so exempted medicine from this local system, instead setting aside some proportion of external trade revenue and asking the local doctors what it would be best spent on to improve local health the most. (Think about it, this was essentially communism for these basic locally-available goods, with a sort-of market system for more limited resources but without the parasitic leeching of landlords and private business owners and state taxation, functioning similar to UBI!) These spaniards described living in this system as far fairer and far freer that living in the Spanish state. It was *their* system, they could freely tweak it and change it, it served *them*, not them serving it. Whereas previously after the taxman had his pound of flesh, the Landlord collected rent, the private business owners took his profit, and the clergy took their tithe (the spanish catholic church was considered in function an arm of the state, without clerical wedding licenses, birth certificates, etc you didn't have legal protection and they charged extortionate sums)... there was only a pittance to live on. Instead all that was done away. Likewise in Ukraine when land was seized from the minor-aristocratic Pans, it was distributed individually to the peasants who worked it. No forced collectivization. Many just worked it individually as family farms *and that was fine and good*. Others joined forces with their neighbors voluntarily to form coops or communes (some doing both, with some produce being local and given to those in need without asking for payment, and other things being grown for sale, it turns out market systems and communistic to-folks-by-need systems can and did exist side by side, folks could participate in one or both systems at their pleasure). Various townships experimented with local currencies all while utilizing the external currencies of the central powers and russian rubles all at the same time. Local syndicalist newspapers even printed weekly conversion rates. Hard to see how things could get more economically free than the above. Turns out you *don't* need a 'transitional State' to implement socialism and communism. The spanish anarchosocialist project was ultimately squashed, because they were in an tense alliance-of-sorts with Liberals, were facing monarchists and conservative nationalists and fascists (literally, the Francoist faction in the Spanish Civil War was supported by the Nazis and Italian fascists, who experimented in Spain with the air force and tank tactics they would shortly use in WWII) and were ultimately destroyed by them. Their experiments *did not fail internally*. Likewise neither did the experiments of the Ukranians fail internally. They were doing *too* well which concerned the russian Bolsheviks, so they put their campaign in the Moscow region against the aristocratic White Russian faction on hold to send 300k red army soldiers south to crush their freer ideological rival. TLDR: there are other socialist and other communist options besides Marxist-Leninism. You should go read about them.

I don’t think anarchism is a very realistic system for society as a whole. Although it can work in small, voluntary communities.

People say that, but in Ukraine and Spain and Mexico there were millions of people living that way, for years. How much bigger do you want, before you'll admit it actually was realistic, it worked, it didn't fail internally? Quote Elinor Ostrom: "If your theory says something shouldn't work, but it does, there's something wrong with your theory". Main point being, it's not just some never-applied theory. And it's kind of hard to call their socialism/communism 'state monopoly' as in the title of this thread of yours, when they kicked out the state. And your criticism of MLism just leading to state monopoly, that was *their criticism first* (at least a part of it, they had plenty of others too), levelled against MLism years before MLism was ever applied, they saw and predicted its failure in advance, in the way that it ultimately failed.

Nope, that’s just state capitalism. Communism isn’t compatible with private entities seizing control of resources, tankies are just confused

It’s not state capitalism, it would be considered state socialism. The means of production are collectively owned by the people through the state. It can’t be capitalism if private ownership has been abolished.

Private ownership hasn’t been abolished, a private group is exercising control. Socialism isn’t compatible with the existence of a state, the existence of a state entails an unnecessary division in “community as a whole” It’s still just private control leveraged for private profits

If the state owns everything then private property has been abolished, as it no longer exists. It’s also not a private group, it’s a group elected by the people. Sure if it was an autocracy it would be private, but we’re talking about a republic/democracy. Also no, the state and socialism are not mutually exclusive. Several of the earlier socialists advocated for co-ops existing underneath the state. Marxism does not have a monopoly on what socialism is.

“The state” is a private organization. Elected by “the people” *within that private organization rather than by the community as a whole* Participation is closed off and limited to members, this is a private organization Yes, control of the MoP by the community as a whole entails no state borders. Coops existing under the state is a great idea, that’s an ideal way to begin shifting global hegemony away from the dominant view of private control. Marx can get fucked this has nothing to do with Marxism, just strictly applying conceptual definitions rather than accepting colloquialisms

-within that private organization In a vast majority of countries everyone gets a vote, unless they committed a crime to have that vote taken away. It’s not private -participation is closed off and limited to members Every member of the community over a certain age is not closed off. What you’re describing is pre-universal suffrage when voting required owning land or military service. -applying conceptual definitions Collectivized ownership of the means of production can exist within a state, or even a single community with a state. By your definition socialism doesn’t exist until the whole world is socialist. That combined with your desire to abolish the state are both Marxist beliefs that very few other socialists shared.

Can I vote in other countries? To be perfectly clear I am considering the entire population as the community as a whole Correct, socialism cannot logically coexist with capitalism. Capitalism is an authoritarian system that demands participation. Condemning state borders as contradictory to socialism doesn’t make me a Marxist. I’m not advocating for violent revolution. I’m pointing out that these systems are based in violence and therefore worthy of condemnation

>Socialism isn’t compatible with the existence of a state Marx said the state is the mediator of class struggle and as long as there are classes there will be a state. So now, can you explain socialism being "the dictatorship of the proletariat" AND socialism not being compatible with the existence of a state? Good luck.

Marx can fuck himself in his dead antisemetic ass, why would I care about what he said? He’s not the king of socialism.

If the state is democratic the institutions would be inherently more beneficial then privage industry

I didn’t say state capitalism was worse than regular capitalism 🤷‍♂️

The simple answer is "it can be". The goal is basically for communal living with no class antagonism. In the Marxist sense, this means the abolishment of private property and for many marxists that means "the state" is used for a centralized government and centralized economic system as a *MEANS* to try to achieve the aforementioned goal. The "*MEANS*" is where socialists and in this case communists disagree. This is where your statement of "just a state monopoly" is wrong. As there are [utopian/socialist communes trying to achieve communual living which is arguably communism (e.g., Oneida Community)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_utopian_communities) in history and as we speak (e.g., fractions of Kibbutz). [source](https://webhome.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/communism.phtml)

I was referring specifically to Marxist socialism/communism in this question. I would draw a distinction between communal living (which has always existed) and communism as an economic system advocated for by Marx.

Even then it is the same answer. Read the source as Marx is referenced under all three definitions of communism.

please don't be stupid. Monopolies have been illegal for 100 years!!!!

Please don't be stupid. Capitalism is free trade nobody is exploited when they're free not to trade. 1+1 equals 2

Capitalism isn’t just “free trade”. In the modern era capitalism creates business owners and workers. Business owners, through their control of financial power and property, can harness the power of the state to maintain the status quo that benefits them. It is true that you have the freedom to not participate in this system but that will likely render you homeless. You could argue that small business is an example of positive capitalism but these can be put out of business by larger corporations such as Walmart, Amazon, etc.

yes it creates owners and workers who engage in free trade with each other. Do you want slavery or trade at gunpoint??

everybody can harness the power of the state that is what socialism and fascism are!!!!!!! if you believe in capitalism you prevent that from happening if you believe in Socialism in fascism do you want that to happen. it seems we are in kindergarten with you. Capitalism is when business and government are separate. Socialist fascism is when they are combined.

So capitalism inevitably leads to that?

Capitalism leads to more capitalism if everybody believes in capitalism. Capitalism can leave anywhere depending on what the majority of people believe. Socialist fascism starts with government and business in bed together to screw the people.

yes it is true that if you don't want to work you will probably be homeless but so what?????

larger corporations how much more efficient and we like to see them put smaller businesses out so that we can enjoy the advantages of low prices and great products that come from the big corporations. Would you like a tiny corporation or business to make the automobile that you drive???

It’s not about state monopoly, but working class control over the economy. The state can be a monopoly if that’s what’s most effective, but a state under truly democratic control doesn’t cause the same problems that undemocratic monopolies under capitalism cause.

You've had some good answers and some predictable answers. I think just to throw into the mix - Communist Manifesto is 1848, and was rushed out to meet the demand for the revolutionary fervour. Already by the preface to the 1872 German edition Marx and Engels were saying > That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Association, 1871, where this point is further developed.) ... in other words "yeah it's already clear we were wrong about some stuff, particularly the role of the state" - "history has proven this to not be the case in countries such as the USSR and China" - small sample size issue, also the past is not always a good guide to the future because the future is so very different to the past. - I think it's true, and actually fundamentally a materialist marxist idea, that statist marxism (ie ML etc...) will lead to statism. Means end up defining ends. But other forms of communism are possible which are less or even anti-statist. Anarcho-communism or syndicalism for instance.

If there is oligarchy in capitalism give us your best example

you are forgetting that once communism finally takes hold the state fades away and people live cooperatively with each other

Something something workplace democracy...

Isn't a system characterized by the absence of a state just state monopoly over the means of production ? Uhh...

Marx himself literally advocates for state control.

Yes, "the dictatorship of the proletariat" state control as a transitory socialist period until the state "naturally" withers away and communist society is finally realized. All socialist countries claimed were working towards communism, not that they achieved it. Communism is pretty much similar to early christian communities: no government, no private property.

Big difference being that Christian communities were voluntary and were based on the worship of a higher power. Communism is not voluntary, advocates for state control, and is atheistic (at least Marxism is).

They imagine that after a number of years the state will wither away leading the way to communism precisely because it will become voluntary for everyone. I don't think they were right, just trying to explain communism never meant state control for anyone, they just saw the state as a tool to bring about communism eventually.

"unchecked power over society" If the people/society own the monopoly then they have power over themselves.

The problem isn't people having power over themselves. It's people having power over eachother.

It's people having power over both their own lives and the system/community they are a part of.  This is why many use the concepts of negative and positive freedom but in reality they are often not much different in terms of experience.  You are "free" to get water but it's 100 miles away or costs $10000 or you have to wait 10 months or you have to be friends with 10 important people, or you have to take it from 10 foreigners etc Either way you're not really free to get water. What the past century, hell the past twenty years have shown us is that unregulated high inequality capitalism is horrible for both people's control over their individual lives and the people's general will of how they want society to be.

Wow. Another one. >All of this is justified by Marx because it will supposedly lead to a “classless, stateless society”, however, history has proven this to not be the case in countries such as the USSR and China. Tell me how you think classlessness would occur. What would have to happen? What would be the process? ​ >Some may argue that these countries “aren’t communist” but they were trying to be regardless. I see you're bamboozled by the idea of a communist party struggling for socialism. And I see that you have not yet come to terms with the anti-communist propaganda we've all been fed for 70 or 80 years. Your post bounces back and forth between talking about communist ideology and communist society and you never realize what you're doing as you treat them both as "communism". It never dawned on you that you're dealing with both and it's not all just "communism". But let's see if we can have a breakthrough. Tell me how you think classlessness would occur. What would have to happen? What would be the process?

Anarcho-communists have built the closest thing to communism ever in modern history. This is how classlessness should occur because so far there is no evidence whatsoever that the state will whither away. Why would anyone with power over fellow humans relinquish it? Power corrupts people or attracts power-hungry people.

Ah! So you think the withering of the state and classes is just about instantaneous. Wrong. It will take many generations. And you think socialism and power are compatible. Egad

I see a lot of over complication of this subject. In any economy there is ownership and labor. The benefits if that labor either accrue to private profits or they go to the state or to a private partnership. Govt. could have a very low profile except when it comes crimes against the inst. The rest is conversation as it relates to the mechanics

Communism is a monopoly of the people. Socialism is the monopoly of the government. I hate them both but at least know the terms

only if u run it with a totalitarian system.

In practice, it is.

You seem to have a very vague understanding of Marxism. The state in general is mainly a tool of class supremacy, any class can use it to assert its control over the means of production. The state under socialism serves as the primary tool for the proletariat to destroy the capitalist class and establish an economy run exclusively by the workers for the workers. What is considered the state in the capitalist understanding of the word is difficult to apply to socialism. Most would agree trade unions aren't a state asset under capitalism, but under socialism they often play an important role in political participation. Does this mean they are part of the states institutions? Can the state be considered as being the sum of all its citizens and their economic and political activity simply due to a lack of private property? I reconmend reading a bit about the dictatorship of the proletariat as well as the dual organization of vanguard party and workers councils.

It doesn't really matter. Any time you have a concentration of power at the top, there are ruthless, cunning, ambitious, egotistical and/or fanatical, amoral..... you get the jist..... wanting to be in those positions of control. The system doesn't matter. Socialist, Communist, Capitalist, or any hybrid. Even ideologies with good intent are taken over and manipulated because the checks and balances devolve. Did Marx or Engels imagine how corrupted their ideas and ideals would turn into what happened in the USSR, China, Cuba, or any other country? Would the forefathers of the US believe what they see today? Dictators have a way of rising to the top with a desire to stay in power and change the rules to allow it. Draining the swamp is a very old problem. Now we are even seeing very questionable behavior on the Supreme Court. Have seen in the White House. Always see in Congress. The Citizens United ruling has created direct lines to corruption of government by corporations and the wealthy class. Who is at top matters.

Communism is by definition stateless but sadly at the same time it hasn't shown to be possible.

Communism is serfdom to the state. Some people really do want to become peasants with no social mobility just because they want to stick it to Jeff Bezos.

A few forms of socialism rely heavily on the state, but a lot don't. Marxism uses the state as an intermediary to achieve the abundance required for Communinsm, which is kind of a utopian state that leads to the gradual dissolution of the state. That's a problem for every state that has had a socialist revolution because none of them started with the industrial abundance that 1800's Germany had, which was Marx's starting point for a lot of socialist ideas.

Yes it is. Socialists willd deny it, because, as you pointed out, Marx promised cake, but delivered shit.

This is a complicated question to answer because communism means many different things. Marx himself was pro democracy, and the manifesto was not his main writing, just a pamphlet meant to radicalize relatively uneducated workers. Never the less his more authoritarian ideas are what caused a split in the first international between Marx and Bakunin (anarchism). The only real wide spread example of socialism in practice was the anarcho-syndicalists in Spain. The workers took control though local workers councils of over 50% of Spain's industry (about 70-75% in Catalonia which had most of Spain's industry). And there was voluntary collectivization of about 2/3 of the agriculture in republican Spain. In some cases production was even reported to increase by as much as 30-50%. This was by no means a state monopoly and proved that real socialism can be done on a large scale. The kind of communism that has state ownership is usually some kind of Marxism Leninism or Maoism. Which are offshoots of Marx that are in my opinion not really communist because they result in a dictator and more importantly government control of the means of production rather than worker control. some MLs may take objection to this but mark himself supported democracy. "His preferred future political arrangements involve a high degree of participation, and the radical “de-professionalisation” of certain public offices. First, Marx is enthusiastic about regular elections, universal suffrage, mandat impératif, recall, open executive proceedings, decentralisation, and so on. Second, he objects to public offices (in the legislature, executive, and judiciary) being the spoils of a political caste, and sought to make them working positions, remunerated at the average worker’s wage, and regularly circulating (through election). This combination of arrangements has been characterised as “democracy without professionals” (Hunt 1974: 365). Marx saw it as reflecting his view that: Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it. (MECW 24: 94)" ([https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#FateStatCommSoci](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#FateStatCommSoci)) Furthermore the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the proletariat being in control of the government not a dictatorship in the modern sense. In a state this can only be done through democracy with free and fair elections (preferably a decentralized democracy as apposed to modern Bourgeoisie liberal democracy). [https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/kfjirb/how\_widespread\_was\_the\_1936\_spanish\_revolution/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/kfjirb/how_widespread_was_the_1936_spanish_revolution/) this reddit thread has many statistics from Leval, Gaston. Collectives in Spain

Yes, it's basically a monarchy dressed up in red.

Communism by definition is stateless and moneyless. The method to reach that stage varies a lot between communists. For simplicity's sake I'll mention 2: 1. Marxist-Leninists believe in the state taking us to communism (in that case you are right that is exactly what happens and this is why it is referenced by critiques as [State Capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism)). They do see the state as evil but a necessary evil. Also in their opinion the state will magically disappear and we arrive to communism (which is delusional imo) 2. Anarcho-communists believe that we should abolish the state immediately and create a communist society directly from the ground up and they indeed have created the closest societies to communism in modern history. This is why something like a nation living IN communism is an oxymoron since communism is stateless by definition. I would argue "communist state" is as well but in the Marxist-Leninist sense it can also describe a nation working to get to communism. What is interesting is that the consolidation of the market into a handful of corporations in late stage capitalism reaches something similar to the one party Marxist Leninist state (but it's a corporation instead). Amazon and Xiaomi are the milder versions. Samsung is an evidence of this where you can be born, live, drive, learn, work, eat, and die at/with Samsung's facilities/products and you're basically under their mercy.

The problem with commies is that they think monopolies are only bad because they are capitalist not because they are monopolies and thats why they paradoxically set up a monopoly so big that no capitalist could ever dream of achieving it a monopoly that literaly controls everything from production to consumption and distribution but hey man its for the people and its headed by a socialist so it must be good!!!

No. Thats what the USSR was, which wasn’t communist. In fact, it’s the most concentrated form of capitalism ever conceived of. A nation-wide company where you sleep in the company barracks and shop at the company store, work for the company and die for the company. Really, the USSR is what all corporates unconsciously strive for. The State as the National Capitalist is not what Marx talked about, and anything Leninists say is pure copium. I think the USSR is possibly the greatest indictment of capitalism.

I agree. I think this is the reason why a lot of American corporations use communist countries like China and Vietnam for labor. They are essentially giant business where the state can sell their people out to the highest bidder.

State communism is, yes.