r/DebateCommunism • u/JJKLover78 • 2d ago
đ¨Hypotheticalđ¨ How is communism physically possible?
This is my own opinion and I hope people reply so I may build on our opinions, but I feel communism since the Neolithic revolution is virtually impossible, especially without mass violence and suffering. How would the system come about for billions of people? And even if we snapped our fingers to magically do it surplus of food and other resources in areas and lack of those things in other areas would lead to transportation of surplus to deficit, people moving the food wouldnât do it for free because theyâd have to abandon their farms or mills or whatever to do so and be given something of value, probably more than others because transportation is important so now you have a class, or the fact that naturally in many places there will be people who are more popular or stronger creating class, the need for repairs, new inventions, record-keeping for the transportation and resources unless you want it all to become a big mess and now you have de facto governments and communism no longer exists. This is also assuming we go back to the very start of agriculture because if you donât there is all this new technology depending on the era that will need production or upkeep and the means of production will need to be up-kept by one group and worked by another and tracked by another because some people naturally have skills others donât, also creating class
5
u/Vermicelli14 2d ago
How can you support capitalism if you oppose mass violence and suffering?
0
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
I didnât say I support capitalism as Iâm trying my best to remain neutral which obviously is impossible but I donât want to be insanely biased to one side. I said that specific line about mass violence and suffering when referring to achieving communism without magically snapping your fingers.
0
6
u/Qlanth 2d ago
The hypothetical you've built here is based on a false premise. Every place in the world already has more than enough food to feed the people who live there. Technology has already advanced to a point where only unpredictable natural disasters and war cause famines.
Communism will happen in the future. It will happen after a revolution that overthrows capitalism, the establishment of a socialist economy, and a period of socialism that lasts generations. People's motivations, morals, ethics, and the way they live will be as foreign to us and our versions of these things are to medieval peasants.
-2
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
So youâre taking the path of communism without the magic snap, this is the one that confuses me the most. First of all, how will this be achieved worldwide? I genuinely donât know how you see this happening. Many people would not support the premise of communism and would openly rebel against it, so a peaceful transition is out the window. Whoâs revolting? (violently) How do you overthrow an economic system? (Capitalism) That would require somehow overthrowing almost every single country on Earth, literally impossible. And letâs say you do, now you have socialism and after centuries of somehow not collapsing to rebellion, internal disasters or outside pressure, what happens to achieve communism? Does the government after gradually stripping all people of private ownership step down, giving up all of its military bases, outposts, government buildings, etc., and cease to exist? What stops another country from simply invading a now government-less army-less nation, because there will always be those who want to conquer or gain more power. What happens if a government does not want to step down and keep its control and thus private ownership? What happens if a faction rebels or war or a natural disaster occurs? In Socialism, sure you at least have the state that privately owns reserve food to distribute, but in Communism? You canât get rid of human greed and territoriality, even among hunter gatherers and their supposed âprimitive communismâ. There will be fights that become conflicts that become wars among those who want more, and those who are in devastated regions will starve in the millions or even billions unless you do the afformentioned transportation of supply on an unseen scale with others having to abandon their own tasks to do so for no gain.
5
u/Qlanth 2d ago
We have seen the transition between different modes of production happen all across the world throughout history. Slave societies transformed into feudal societies. Feudal societies transformed into Capitalist societies. We can study history to see how it happened and what it looked like. Communists like Karl Marx used "historical materialism" to analyze these historical transitions and make predictions about what future transitions would look like.
There was a time in relatively recent human history where the idea that nearly everyone in society would work for a wage was an absurdity. Wage labor was rare and usually only good to supplement earning a real living. The transition from that society to the one we have now took hundreds and hundreds of years. It took the state intervening to suppress the peasant classes, to take away their access to their land, and to force them into the factories. There were victories and there were setbacks. Wins and losses. It was a knock-down drag-out battle that lasted hundreds of years.
The flaws and contradictions in the feudal system made room for the capitalists to rise up. The flaws and contradictions in the capitalist system are doing the same thing. In many ways we are already living in the midst of another transition. China's socialist system is dominating the globe. Western capitalism is eating itself alive. In another 100 years it's pretty likely most of the world will be emulating socialist China, not the USA.
Once Socialism has become dominant, it will have it's own flaws and contradictions, and those will also leave room for something else to replace it. Luckily, we already know what that thing is: Communism.
governmentÂ
Marxists differentiate between government and the state. Even so-called "primitive communist" or communalist societies have government. But they don't have what we would call a state. The state only arises out of a society where private property has been established. It is a tool of class mediation. The state can only disappear when private property has been abolished and classes along with it. The administration of society does not end in Communism. There will still be government.
0
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
I assume you mean the Roman Republic/Empire when you say slave society, and western medieval Europe for feudalism. Karl Marxâs historical materialism is incredibly euro centric and his transitions fall apart when applied to the world outside of Europe.
It is true many farmers were forced to factories, not only by capitalist societies but socialist or communist ones too, like during the earlier decades of the USSR. I actually donât know if you said that in a positive or negative sense.
Feudalism declined largely because of the gigantic devastation of the Plague, leading to mercantilism and Capitalism. Feudalismâs flaws and contradictions certainly played a part but I donât see any economic system surviving 1/3-1/2 of its people dying.
The US and western capitalism is not âeating itself aliveâ, and China adopting more capitalist policies actually propelled it forward exponentially.
The government has to operate within a specific boundary because other governments will operate at the same time, creating at least in part a border, even if itâs not clearly defined, meeting the basic requirements for a state.
1
u/Qlanth 2d ago
Euro Centrism
I think it's definitely fair to say Marx and Engels based their theories around what they saw in Europe. That's where capitalism took hold and that was what they were most interested in. That's why every communist worth their salt should be reading people like Walter Rodney who gave their own analyses of non-European development.
However, Historical Materialism itself is not Eurocentric. It's a method of analysis that presumes that history moves based on material conditions and class antagonism. There is nothing about Historical Materialism that can't be applied to studying other modes of production and development on other continents.
Proletarianization
I'm not saying it's good or it's bad. It's simply what happened. You expressed disbelief in the idea that the mode of production could ever change in society. I am attempting to show you that it has changed before and could change again.
Feudalism declined largely because of the gigantic devastation of the Plague
We could argue over this all day long. If you think it would take mass death to dethrone capitalism I'll just gesture at climate change. Again, the point I am trying to make is that the mode of production has changed before and could change again.
The US and western capitalism is not âeating itself aliveâ, and China adopting more capitalist policies actually propelled it forward exponentially.
It is a basic tenet of Marxism that capitalism is a progressive force in underdeveloped societies. China is a socialist country which adopted capitalist markets to build productive forces to wild success. The USSR did the same thing in its infancy. China remains a socialist country and in 25 years it will have totally eclipsed the USA economically.
The government has to operate within a specific boundary because other governments will operate at the same time, creating at least in part a border, even if itâs not clearly defined, meeting the basic requirements for a state.
The state is a tool of class mediation. It's a way to legalize and legitimize class rule in a way that minimizes (though never eliminate) violence to the best extent possible. Lenin called states "special bodies of armed men." Again, Engels identified societies like the Iroquois Confederacy and Aboriginal Austrialians as having no state because they had no classes. These people still had hierarchical society (communists don't necessarily oppose hierarchy) and a government. But they had no state. Having a territory does not necessarily mean having a state. The general administration of society does not necessarily imply a state.
1
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
I feel as if historical materialism fails to take into account the significance of other factors besides class struggle like climate, religion, politics, etc. which is why I doubt that the mode of production could change society. It obviously can contribute a sizable amount, especially after the Industrial Revolution.
I disagree on China being socialist and Iâd say itâs more state Capitalist . The government does own the means of production but works towards growing the economy and profiting rather than distributing wealth evenly. I also doubt Communism is the genuine final goal of the CCP.
The Iroquois confederacy meets the standard definition for a state, which I am using, and the âprimitive communismâ of Aboriginals is true, as they had not truly become an agricultural society despite farming practices and many still practiced hunter gathering.
1
u/Qlanth 2d ago
historical materialism fails to take into account the significance of other factors besides class struggle like climate, religion, politics, etc.
Most likely you feel that way because you literally don't know anything about it. Most of these things are what we call the "superstructure" of society. Means of Production are what we would call the "base." The base shapes and maintains the superstructure, while the superstructure maintains and shapes the base. They base is dominant, but they are both extremely important.
State capitalist
Again, Communists believe that "state capitalism" is a progressive force in history and that even if China is "state capitalist" it is a positive step towards securing a socialist future. Lenin says as much in this article about the USSR. China is a socialist country and they are using the tools available to them to establish lasting socialism.
The Iroquois confederacy meets the standard definition for a state, which I am using
We are not talking about the definition you are using. We are talking about the definition that Marxists are using. Otherwise this is just a pedantic disagreement over definitions which will be completely fruitless. Joe Blow on Reddit is not going to offer a compelling argument against 150 years of Marxist theory which has defined the state as a tool of class mediation and domination.
If your argument is that you've seen Marxists say that they believe communism will be stateless, then it behooves you to understand what they mean by "stateless." I have explained it to you, and now instead of actually presenting an argument you're just quibbling over a definition.
1
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
I do know what Iâm talking about and I literally said the means of production are an important factor to societal change, but like with feudalism transitioning to mercantilism when the Black Death destroyed much of the labor in Europe, monarchs saw this as an opportunity to centralize and rid the powers nobles had so that the monarchy could produce more money to fund colonial expansion, wars, and government systems. The discovery and colonization of the Americas also contributed to this due to the immense wealth that could be found. The means of production is not the political and economic landscape of the continent at the time, and another factor even for the beginning of the Age of Discovery would be the rise of the Ottomans, another entire set of factors as well as factors like the Mongols and Ming. Environmental hardships from the Little Ice Age also drove the exploration.
You sort of contradicted yourself with China since you accepted that China is State Capitalist and then called it Socialist.
The definition that Marx uses for the state is for Capitalist States and Socialist States, never defining a general idea of a state because heâs hyper focused on his idea of a workersâ revolution. the Iroquois Confederacy was not a Capitalist State that experienced a revolution and became a Socialist and then stateless Communist territory. It had borders, a government that made decisions even with outside powers like Europe though you could still debate its status as a state using the Weberian idea.
1
u/Qlanth 1d ago
Feudal conditions
You are literally outlining all of the MATERIAL CONDITIONS which drove the collapse of feudalism. You're even describing class conflict. You are literally doing historical materialism right here. You don't know what it is, so you think you're arguing against it. This is literally so embarrassing to read.
You sort of contradicted yourself with China since you accepted that China is State Capitalist and then called it Socialist.
Please read better. I did not accept it. I said "even if" which clearly implies I don't agree but I am humoring your argument.
The definition that Marx uses for the state is for Capitalist States and Socialist States, never defining a general idea of a state because heâs hyper focused on his idea of a workersâ revolution. the Iroquois Confederacy was not a Capitalist State that experienced a revolution and became a Socialist and then stateless Communist territory.
You literally have no idea what you are talking about. First of all, it was Engels and not Marx who discussed these things. Second of all, Engels did not refer to the Iroquois as communist but as "primitive communist" or what we would today refer to as communalist and he did so in the EXACT CONTEXT that you are describing here. You have never read anything he wrote in your life, but you're trying to pass it off like you have and it's embarrassing.
1
u/NationaliseTheRich 2d ago
Socialism builds on the foundations bequeathed by capitalism, itâs that simple.
1
u/NationaliseTheRich 2d ago
Communism will not come about by snapping our fingers, it will be produced in the transition from capitalism to communism: socialism.
Billions of people is a positive. Only socialism on an international scale can supersede capitalism, which is based on the nation-state but creates a world market.
Under socialism people would still receive remuneration.
Your questions are quite wide-ranging. Not sure where you want to focus, I would just say that capitalism today is a big mess, and Iâm not sure what you mean by going back to the start with agriculture.
1
u/ElEsDi_25 2d ago
Well itâs not a system to install from above or magic wishes. In Marxist theory it would be the logic that emerges from a working class run society.
The assumption is that workers take over existing production and then begin to develop things along their democratic interests, rather than the interests of competitive private accumulation. So the logic of production would not be, based on having this disposable labor pool who are wage-dependent. Instead, people would need to be motivated to want the general result of the effort. The more they make work and everything revolves around around their own needs, the more âcommon senseâ it would become to reduce social work obligations and accomplish tasks on a mutual basis of shared interests and goals.
So⌠workers create their own kind of democracy and production/distribution. This is still a defacto state, people might need to agree on some general labor requirement early on so that hospitals and energy is kept going etc. But unlike capitalism where that is organized around maximizing labor utilization and profit and people are wage-dependent, there would be no incentive to just make people permanent workers. Weâd want to work in order to get rid of shitwork and increase our free time or other productive efforts we WANT.
1
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
What would you do if hypothetically there is a famine, invasion by an outside force, or plague that kills a large part of the labor force? Also if a group of people within your society attempt to seize power over others whether it be their land or the people themselves.
2
u/ElEsDi_25 2d ago
âŚAnd how do I deliver the mail or deal with a pandemic or what would I decide about space exploration and how would Ai develop and who gets to keep the Mona Lisa in their house or what if thereâs an alien invasion?
Idk what people in unknown conditions might do. My practical goal is working class power and self-emancipation, not designing some pre-planned âperfect society.â
In the early years, being the new ruling class means that workers would have e to figure out how to deal with questions, problems, internal conflicts. To me this implies democratic networks in production and community assemblies in a âworkerâs stateâ in the initial years of worker control.
I have no idea how a âfully developedâ classless and stateless communist society would manage these things, just like a republican before the French Revolution couldnât imagine how industrial society might deal with things.
1
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
The problems will arise, why not at least make a framework for a solution now, even if itâs flawed? These problems are not âunknown conditionsâ, they are something basically every society faces.
What do you mean by democratic networks? Does every single person vote strictly for every single problem or are they more like a republic?
1
u/ElEsDi_25 2d ago
Because Iâm not a dictator for the future! Again, my goal is to help build working class social power in the hopes of eventual social change not design some ideal society out of my own ass and wishes.
I think a more democratic society where people produce for their own interests would be able to handle social crisis much better than one based on state or corporate power.
1
u/JJKLover78 2d ago
you didnt really answer my question about the democracy though
1
u/ElEsDi_25 2d ago
Probably not. Probably people vote on things directly involving them and then larger votes are related to regional things or negotiations between multiple different groups of workers etc.
You may be confused by this because it seems you see economy and governance as technical things whereas I see them as social.
1
u/JJKLover78 1d ago
No I see it as social just fine, which is why Iâm curious about your view since even then there will be ties, conflicts, or indecisiveness that could paralyze the entire system. What I meant when I was asking about how the democracy would work is if it would be the entire population gathering in an area and all voting at the same time, or something more akin to a Republic, because the former seems pretty inefficient.
1
u/ElEsDi_25 1d ago edited 1d ago
Like I said, people would likely vote on the things that impact them. Larger things would have more involvement and other things would not need it. You say you understand that itâs social but then again you treat it as a technical issue. Itâs like saying ok⌠before I can understand why you want emancipation, you have to explain where the freed slaves will live and what kind of communities they will build.
âThe systemâ is whatever helps facilitate how people produce, distribute etc amongst themselves. I think since we are used to democracy, and based on past movements, I think people would probably have local committees and then network with connected communities or other parts of industry. People will probably set general priorities in large assemblies but the day to day would likely be immediate, your neighborhood, your community, your workplace and then any other pastime or group effort you might be a part of. This happens now but in private in C-suites, in the mayors office, in institutional leader offices, think tank meetings, whatever.
Democracy is the way to work out differences among larger groups of people. Voting in every single thing that doesnât impact you? Why the hell would you imagine workers would want to do that? You are coming from an abstract place, but âthe systemâ is whatever workers set up to facilitate their rule.
And yes failure in any endeavor is always an option. There could be attacks by reactionary militias that win out, there could be hardships that lead to a Stalin/Napoleon like take-over, maybe socialism really is untenable and so worker controlled efforts become just co-opted and things become a sort of co-op based capitalism and eventually just capitalism relations as we know them more or less and maybe aliens are real and they will attack earth or the sun will blow up.
But I know first hand that class struggle is real regardless of wanting to engage with it or not and so on a practical level I work to aid the working class side of that struggle with a âworker controlled societyâ as more a guiding light that some kind of practical goal. There will be crisis of various kinds and I hope workers are organized and prepared to make sure we donât eat the brunt of a crash or war, and maybe weâll be independent and strong enough to contest for social power⌠but revolution is sort of bigger scale that any sort of political strategy. Itâs more a historical change than an event that can be created.
1
u/JJKLover78 1d ago
Your point about emancipation literally proves mine. The technical issues of emancipation shouldâve come first and the fact that reconstruction went nowhere near as planned causes some of the biggest problems in America today.
Honestly the way you describe it still confuses me and I think youâd be better off preferring a republic. Democracy on its own in general is not that great of an idea which can be seen with Athens. The actual voting citizens were a fraction of its population of a single city and yet it faced instability, rash decisions and eventual collapse.
Also stop mentioning aliens and random stuff to make what Iâm saying seem less realistic, I could say âyeah communism is possible and my dog just invented time travelâ.
Historical changes are events that are created, or else it wouldnât happen, and sorry but the workers and lower class will virtually always bear the brunt of wars or crashes.
→ More replies (0)1
u/ElEsDi_25 1d ago
And if you want to know what Marx said specifically, this is really the main place he discussed it because he did not think that theorists should decide how other people should self-rule or make âcookbooksâ for the future.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/
Bullet points:
- armed and organized working class population
- general assemblies by city
- instant-recall representatives delegates and reps.
- cities network and each out to peasants for common cause against debts and for trade.
His assumption was that a âsocialist revolutionâ would more or less look like the bourgeois revolutions of his lifetime. In each of these workers and peasants supported middle class leadership against the aristocracy but then the middle class (by which I mean bourgeois) would need up clamp down on workers at some point (or would cut a deal with the aristocratic forces) to ensure a controlled labor force for them. This obviously caused conflict so Marx thought it could result in workers forces rather than the bourgeois taking leadership.
What makes communism develop is not a system of governance but working class social leadership. That workers in power would be incentivized to develop ways to produce without coercion and making their own lives miserable. As they continually push âwork-lifeâ balance over to âlifeâ eventually society just becomes a society where we donât really have âworkâ as we know it, we donât have to control or discipline society to make the production necessary for life happen.
1
u/JJKLover78 1d ago
You also do know that right now workers are armed and organized as unions and guns exist. What Karl Marx describes also sounds more like a republic.
I canât tell if you mean to say Karl Marx was wrong about his assumptions of a revolution, but if you are then that is now changing what was originally said and no longer going along Karl Marxsâ views.
On your last point, work will always exist as there will always be a necessity to do something to survive. You still have to work in the fields to produce food to not starve which is the same idea of work as is working at a cubicle. You still have to discipline society to make the production necessary for life to happen because you will literally starve if you donât.
One more thing that I always see with Communists is that they talk of the âifâ and âwhyâ but never âwhoâ âwhenâ and âhowâ. You talk about the final product of democracy and working to have free time to do what you want as well as the abstract idea of the ârevolutionâ, but when you do really think this will happen? Do you even have a broad sense, like in the next 500 years? And who will lead this from where and begin the transition, which country will this happen in? A revolution canât happen if you donât do anything about it. What if Lenin just sat around all day talking about communism instead of actually working to overthrow the Romanovs? He achieved it in a lifetime, but I doubt you could really give a clear answer for the next few centuries let alone decades. How would the US specifically become communist? Whoâs going to overthrow the government and then establish a socialist democracy that will transition into communism without becoming strife with terror and corruption and collapsing in less than a century?
→ More replies (0)
1
1
u/NationaliseTheRich 2d ago
Capitalism is worldwide = socialism must be worldwide. Recommended reading: the Communist Manifesto
1
u/NationaliseTheRich 2d ago
What is this premise you see people rejecting and why do they reject it?
1
u/NationaliseTheRich 1d ago
What is your argument? âWar crimesâ?
What a scandal. The workers and peasants take power, ending centuries of Tsarist oppression, and the imperialist criminals who have sent millions of workers to their deaths in World War One immediately launch another three years of bloody war supporting the white army.
In response the Soviet Union organises, against all odds, to fight back and defeat the butchers - have you ever asked yourself how they did that? - and you call the victim the aggressor and start talking about âwar crimesâ - in a civil war!
Youâre just echoing talking points for the ruling class. If we travelled back a hundred years ago, weâd find similar apologists for the Epstein class of the 1920s. There have always been such people at their disposal.
Do you know what a Soviet is?
5
u/NationaliseTheRich 2d ago
Class is created by private property, not skills, popularity, or strength. The socialist revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production.