Quote:
Originally posted by Torone@Jul 26 2003, 12:06 PM
For instance, you can't even answer a simple question that I have asked a number of times: What is YOUR definition of Communism?
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lolololol.... That is the first time I have seen you ask that of me...at least in this thread...(I don't recall any other times you ahve asked me, so if you know of some time that you have, please post the reference to it...)
My definition of communism eh ?? Well I have always felt that the picture of a "Utopia" as painted by Marx was the true definition of communism... Something that has not been seen on our planet with the U.S. actually ending up being the closest to...
The "Marxist" communist society would be a place where everyone would be totally equal, in all ways. The people would produce all the things needed, just because they were needed, and share them all equally and happilly. The world would be a peaceful, happy, bountiful place with no classes, no class wars, no inequalities whatever.
Unfortunately, the countries that have claimed to be, or have been labeled as "Communist" have actually ended up being socialist dictatorships, which is a level necessary within Marx's framework in order for communism to be acheived. Problem is all the countries that have embraced Marxism have stalled out at that point. It is, according to Marx, supposed to be a relatively short period in time.. The period in which the belongings of the individuals are taken and brought into ownership by the state. Later they are turned over from the state to the "people" as a whole... Then the necessity for "the state" disappears and everybody lives happily ever after:
From The communist manifesto:
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics.../manifesto.html
** sare note: The taking of the property
"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 proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized 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 revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
** sare note: establishment of socialism...
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
**sare note: this is about as far as any country following the Marxist route to communism have reached.....
** sare note: Removal of the need for a state
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 organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize 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.
** sare note: live happily ever after
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. "
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BTW Marx lived with his head in his personal old fairy tale.....