Posts tagged essay
Rethink Socialism
workers of the world, unite!
ONE CANADIANS PERSONAL GENESIS: CENSORSHIP & SOCIALISM: feel free to say whatever you want, as long as its what THEY agree with.
Censorship is one of the pillars of socialism and you know it’s amazing that folks do not realize this. Throughout history socialist and communist nations alike, as well as dictatorships could not allow free speech, if they did then people would get talking and overthrow the government or if there…
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
A socialist society was to be democratic in shape and structure. Marx and Engels were “against a system whereby the Party leader would make final decisions on everything and where anybody who attacks one of them is a heretic.”
Engels wrote: “The looser the organization is now in appearance, the stronger it is in reality.” Marx and Engels would have rejected the kind of unity demanded by the Soviet doctrine— “Unity of thought and action is merely another name for orthodoxy and blind obedience.”
Marx and Engels both warned against (here in Engels’ words) “the folly of throwing people out,” since this movement “cannot exist unless all shades of opinion are allowed free expression in it.”
A Point of View: The revolution of capitalism
“Karl Marx may have been wrong about communism but he was right about much of capitalism, John Gray writes.
As a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.”
This article, though a change of pace from the typical, still makes me rather angry. The author writes as if he is coming from a position of knowledge in the Marxist field of thinking. To the layman, this assumption may seem correct. However, any one who has read the Communist Manifesto could quickly point out many flaws in his point of view. Like this one, for example:
“Capitalism has led to a revolution but not the one that Marx expected. The fiery German thinker hated the bourgeois life and looked to communism to destroy it. And just as he predicted, the bourgeois world has been destroyed. But it wasn’t communism that did the deed. It’s capitalism that has killed off the bourgeoisie.”
This author quoted the Manifesto, but did he read it? Marx never said communism would be the end of capitalism. He said that the proletariat (an inherent feature of capitalism) would eventually revolt and abolish capitalism. To rephrase it, capitalism would destroy itself because the oppressed proletariat is a permanent feature of the system. Then would come socialism, then communism, and so on… The author seems to misunderstand, or purposely distort the Marxist theory of communism. Communism isn’t just imposed or created out of thin air to destroy capitalism— it’s an evolution.
Okay, maybe I’m too picky. Yes the article has some good things to say, so I’m not going to pick through and find/argue all the flaws. This just made me think of something that I find I ask myself quite a lot when reading things like this— are some authors that tell half-truths just afraid of ridicule or persecution? Do they really not fully understand what they’re writing about? Or are they catering to the ‘petty-bourgeoisie’? I see things written all the time that are along the same lines as what this author wrote:
“Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It’s not just capitalism’s endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours.”
The author starts on the defensive (for lack of a better word) and continues with acknowledging truth in Marx’s theories. This is a pattern I often see repeated in the social democratic-bourgeois news cycle. Is it that the author thinks the audience will feel more comfortable if at first they deny the validity of something in the socialist/communist/Marxist field of thought, and then swoop in and accept some validity? I don’t know if this helps or not. I think in the end it just helps to continue and rationalize peoples irrational fears.
What are your thoughts?
aandk said: But don’t you think pure laissez-faire capitalism would evolve into an oppressive institution very similar to the state?
How could it? I mean I guess you could make the same assumption for a communist society too.
But if it is a society without a state, where free exchange and participation is voluntary, I don’t really understand how or why a state would emerge from that. You cannot force a population to be governed by a state if they simply refuse and are already happy with their freedom.
Personally I think it would be like going up to a black person and saying, hey if you just be my slave again, trust me everything will work out fine - I’ll feed you, clothe you if you work for me and if I can own you. What black person in this day and age after they fought so hard to be free would take him up on that offer? None. The same I believe would be true of an anarchist society. Once people are given freedom and freedom to disagree and to act on that disagreement to try and rule them would be as futile as running around a field trying to catch flies with your hands. In an anarchist society capitalism and communism would be completely voluntary.
You’re assuming capitalists would abide by the same principles of voluntarism and non-aggression that you would. Capitalism will not, and capitalism can not. It is a system that depends on coercion and exploitation to function. It has every incentive to seek to dominate and control all those around it, and will use the same methods it’s used throughout its history to effect that domination.
It doesn’t have to be a state, or even state-like, to be oppressive, it simply has to follow its own internal prerogative, which is to generate the most capital at the lowest cost.
Suggesting that capitalism could peacefully coexist with an anarchist society, or with any non-capitalist system for that matter, is to ignore the entire history of capitalism. It is political naivete of the highest order; it is reminiscent of nothing so much than the tourist at a wild life refuge in Africa who gets out of his car to try and pet the “cute” lion, with the predictable results.
Spot on. I understand where liberationfrequency is coming from— maybe it would even start off that way. However, this ignores the fact that capitalism is just a system designed for the accumulation of capital. Capital accumulation is nothing but the hoarding of social power. The capitalists in an anarcho-capitalist society would be very similar to the state leaders of today: they would possess a monopoly of power over the working class.
(via ghost-of-algren)
The Myth of State Communism or ‘communist states’
State communism. I’ve heard this term thrown around quite a lot.
What is state communism? Contrary to popular belief, state communism is a myth. This is word conjured by the bourgeoisie to be used as a substitute for Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism. State communism is intrinsically a contradictory term. Communism, by all adherents and political theorists is considered to be a stateless society. Even Lenin and Stalin, the heads of so-called ‘‘communist states’, admitted that communism cannot exist while the state does. The most authoritarian communists submitted to this idea. Here is an excerpt of a Q&A with Joseph Stalin, regarding the question of what a communist society would be like,
“Briefly, the anatomy of a Communist society may be described as follows: it is a society in which there will be no private ownership of the instruments and means of production, but social, collective ownership; there will be no classes or state power… but a free association of working people…” — [“Interview with the First American Labor Delegation,” Works, X, 139-40]
The existence of Leninist, Stalinist, and Maoist states is undisputed, but do not call them communist states. The cause of confusion is rooted in the fact that these states were ran by various communist parties. However, states headed by the communist parties never declared their countries to be communist, but said they were in the transitional period between capitalism and communism that they argued the state (which they declared was the irrefutable dictatorship of the proletariat) needed to exist for. These were obvious perversions of what Marx intended to be the road to a communist society. Continuing to call these countries “communist” furthers the illusion that they successfully carried out the ideals of communism— this does no justice to the case for socialism and communism. This, in a very prophetical way, is exactly what Peter Kropotkin pointed out…
[Kropotkin to Lenin:] …you have no right to soil the ideas which you defend by shameful methods … What future lies in store for Communism when one of its most important defenders tramples in this way every honest feeling?”
Indeed, what is in store for the future of communism when fellow socialists, communists, anarchists, Marxists, etc., continue to defile the name of communism by even allowing the myth that these states were anywhere close to the ideals of communism to spread. We must call upon all leftists, even those most skeptical of socialism/communism to stop inflicting damage to their own side.
freedomthrutruth asked:
In America there seems to be a huge fear of anything socialist. People hear the word socialism and their minds instantly go to communist China or Russia. Could you first explain the difference between communism and socialism, and second, why you believe socialism is the better system?
I will try to answer this in the least confusing way as possible. Wish me luck.
(Post-Edit: Okay, this ended up kind of confusing. I’m not the best at organizing ideas so if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.)
I’ll start off explaining why I call myself a socialist:
I call myself a socialist not because I adhere to a narrow and definite group of ideals, but because it is the broadest term available in explaining my political alignment. I am a socialist, a communist, an anarchist, a libertarian socialist, an anarcho-syndicalist, an anarcho-communist, a Marxist, and basically anything that calls for a legitimate transformation from capitalism into ‘an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common’. I do not like capitalism, or the state.
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Given that both socialism and communism are commonly misunderstood, I’ll describe both.
Now, what is socialism?
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are controlled and owned collectively by the people. The goods produced by society are produced for use rather than profit, therefore eliminating overproduction and allocations of resources that harm rather than benefit the people. In Marxist theory, socialism is the road that eventually leads to communism. This quote from Marx sums up his idea of the transformation to a communist society,
“Between capitalists and Communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”
This brings about a term used much by Marx, a term misconstrued by Lenin and further desecrated by Stalin: the dictatorship of the proletariat. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat is misunderstood by a great number of people to mean a totalitarian system. This was far from what was on the mind of Marx and Engels. They believed when the proletariat achieved class-consciousness, the realization of a democratic political system would lead to a majority of workers’ representatives and therefore the rule of the working class. This would mean the abolishment of an oppressive centralized government and police political functions, public affairs would be in the hands of an elected legislature, and representatives are subject to a democratic recall at all times. More contemporary Marxists and other political theorists have contemplated whether the elected legislature is even required, and the possibility that it could or should be replaced by syndicates…
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What is communism?
Communism is a socio-economic system that is stateless, classless, and built within the economic framework of socialism. On top of the common ownership of the means of production, it calls for free access to goods and articles, and abolishment of private property and wage-labor. True communism and anarcho-communism are one in the same, the latter term only needing to exist to distinguish communism from the authoritarian institutions created by the USSR, China, and various other so called ‘communist’ countries. Yes, true communism is stateless,
“With the introduction of the socialist order of society the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.” - Engels
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More of my opinions:
I am a subscriber to the idea that the elected legislature described by Marx (maybe) should be replaced by syndicates. I feel that given the corruption of Marx’s ideas more than once, along with the obvious corruption going on with todays republics, the possibility of power becoming too centralized is a real threat. (That being said, I still don’t adhere to some set of rules about Marxism. Maybe a republic the way Marx described it could work) Rosa Luxemburg once said that the most unlimited, broadest democracy and unrestricted public opinion is the only way to a rebirth of society. This is something I feel is very important— the dictatorship of the proletariat should be exactly that, a free association of the entire non-capitalist class making their own decisions. I reject the original idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat offered by Marx, because I see it as the dictatorship of the representatives of the proletariat.
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Why is socialism/communism feared in the United States as well as other parts of the world?
Simply because of the existence of the ‘Soviet Myth’, the myth that the governments of the USSR, China, and other countries that called themselves socialist or communist are equal with and actually carried out the idea of socialism and communism. A Peter Kropotkin quote does a very good job explaining and somewhat predicting this fear:
“Vladimir Ilyich…. Are you so blinded, so much a prisoner of your own authoritarian ideas, that you do not realize that being at the head of European Communism, you have no right to soil the ideas which you defend by shameful methods … What future lies in store for Communism when one of its most important defenders tramples in this way every honest feeling?”
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And finally, which is better, socialism or communism?
Well, if I happened to do a good enough job explaining socialism and communism, you’d see that socialism is the economic frame that communism will (theoretically) be built in. If a totally classless communist society ever forms, it will be a natural occurrence that rises out of socialism. Therefore, being that I cannot say for sure (because no one can) that a completely classless society can ever exist, I call myself a socialist simply because socialism is closer. I do not reject or dislike the idea of communism at all, as long as it is executed the way it was meant to be executed: by the people.
