Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
No problem, thanks for asking! 🙂
One thing I think you’re misreading is the State withering away. What we commonly think of as the “State,” ie the entire public sector, government, administration, etc is not the same as what Marx calls the State. For Marx, the State is the elements of Government that contribute to Class oppression.
Before we can continue, we need to know what a “class” even is to begin with. Elsewhere in this thread, people make reference to something like a “planner class,” but for Marx, no such thing exists. Rather, Classes are social relations with respect to ownership of the Means of Production and interaction with it. “Plumbers” are not a class, just like “managers” are not a class. The reason this is important, is because a classless society is one that holds all of the Means of Production in Common. In other words, full Public Ownership.
Circling back to the State, how does it “wither away?” The answer is that the Proletarian state, one dominated by the Proletariat and not the Bourgeoisie, gradually wrests from the Bourgeoisie its Capital with respect to the degree that it has developed. A Socialist revolution would not turn everything into Public Property instantly, markets and Capitalists would remain until the industries they govern develop enough that Public Ownership becomes more efficient and markets stagnate, ie monopolist phases where competition has run dry.
Since this is a gradual process, imagine every bit of Private Property wrested chips away at the State. The second Private Property reaches 0% and Public Property reaches 100%, there are no longer any classes, and thus no class to oppress. The “State” disappears, leaving only government, administration, and more behind.
As for the structural makeup of the socialist government, it would be most likely made up of “rungs,” a local rung, a regional rung with representatives from each local rung, a provincial, national, international, etc rung, as many as needed and as few as necessary for proper Central Planning. What you describe as people being able to just “take advantage” of that could happen, Communism isn’t some utopia of perfection, but such a society is far more resiliant as well as resistant to this than Capitalism, and more importantly builds up over time in a realistic manner.
Does that answer your question? Feel free to read from the reading list I linked earlier, also linked on my profile!
How does one get a Proletarin state? It seems that any state would be susceptible to corruption & greed? It’s what we have everywhere in the world.
Revolution is required to bring it about. You can observe the various successes and struggles faced by existing Socialist societies and historical Socialist societies to see what has worked and what hasn’t quite worked for how to organize it.
Moreover, every system is going to be susceptible to corruption and greed, Socialism would be more resiliant against it due to focusing production on fulfilling needs, rather than profits as a rule.
Revolution = power vacuum.
Human nature = craves power.
Not necessarily, this is extremely oversimplified.
First, Marxists advocate for building Dual Power, ie an existing “second government” to take the place of the first.
Second, Humans don’t “crave power.” Humans work towards their own self-interest, but this alone doesn’t translate to “power.”
Advocate. Its a nice sediment. But in reality a strongman will fill that vacuum. Always has, always will.
Let’s substitute the word power for dominion. The “ideal” human doesn’t want power or dominion, but you and I don’t live in that world. People in every nation on this Earth have a presiding desire for control; control nature, control the elements, control others. Everywhere humans want control over others.
It may not be the way we want it to be, but it is how it is.
No, what you say isn’t true at all, nor are you speaking in real terms but vibes. You’re historically wrong and sociologically wrong.
Thank you for such a great response and answer, although I feel I’ve sold my knowledge of leftist ideas a bit short since you have given me a introduction into all of it as well as your answer. But you did answer my question well so a follow up question, given that people could take advantage of the government in some sense, is it not a concern that new class styled system could take hold, one centered on favors from the central government.
Another question which is probably less boring than my last couple, is do Marxist want to see eventual end of all oppressive forces, not just class based. To that extent I would think having a central government would be incompatible since it would allow for some one to take advantage of their position.
Separately, I would think most people can solve their problems if given the means to do so, or the access to those with knowledge - is further centralization really the solution?
I’ll take a skeptical look at your reading list. But you’ve given me some incredible insight into the ideas of Marxists, so thank you for that!
Sure, I’ll take a crack at these!
For your first question, we have to question what it would mean to revert from full Public Ownership to some kind of Private Ownership. Such a method would require a revolution, to change hands from the global population to an elite few, but how would they do that? Communism is international, there’s little need for an army at all at that point, and police would be replaced largely by social workers. Such an upbeaval of the status quo would require a massive upset.
If you mean from within the system, ie slowly boil the frog and peacefully remove all democracy, I would ask you to explain how that would happen given the democratic forces at play and overall economic basis being one requiring everyone in society to be able to participate to their fullest extent, as well as why, when such a system would be at relative abundance.
At earlier stages in development, ie Socialism, sort of? However, I reiterate, planning is not a class, it’s a form of labor.
For your second question, I suppose I would say yes, Marxists don’t believe Communism to be the “end.” However, it is unlikely that such a system would move in favor of decentralization, as decentralization removes democratic input and paves the way for competition and markets to resurface into Capitalism. Engels’ work Anti-Duhring is centered on such a concept, though it isn’t on my reading list.
As for whether or not humanity will eventually move into a more Anarchist style, there’s little to suggest so far that mass, complex industry will simplify itself to where there is a total reversion from full public Ownership and central planning to incredibly simplified individual ownership and planning. I won’t say it’s impossible, but new analysis within Communism would have to observe its trends and predict the next phase of society to be based on atomization and individualism, rather than mass cooperation.
Marx never “decided” that Socialism was good so it should happen, rather, Capitalism’s natural tendency to centralize and teach society how to scale industry further and further and plan it meant Socialism was the next logical step. Such analysis would have to be done again, within Communism, and observe such phenomena to make it valid analysis.
Hope that helps!