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The fundamental principals of Communism as conceived/created by Marx are that it would be a classless society where the workers owned the means of production.

Many countries have claimed to be communist but none have ever fit the base definition as originally conceived and described. It is like in the past when the US has neglected to describe itself as a republic and calls itself a democracy. Just because the country uses a pretty propaganda name to obscure the reality does not mean that it changes the base definition.

As Such, Thee USSR was a Socialist police state ruled by Tyrrants and the US is a Constitutional Republic that pays lip service to being a democracy while the Government proceeds unchecked with Imperialist policies.

Of course, this is just my perception based upon the classical definitions. If you believe that definitions should be changed to incorporate the propaganda of nations trying to hide their true nature then you will most likely dissagree with my view.

Ok so it seems that dakka pretty much agrees on communism by itself, but just to throw a spanner in the works, how about communism in an anarchic society. Seeing how this would eliminate corrupt governments but also eliminate a lot of the drive to to work, it could be an interesting topic.

Kragura wrote:Ok so it seems that dakka pretty much agrees on communism by itself, but just to throw a spanner in the works, how about communism in an anarchic society. Seeing how this would eliminate corrupt governments but also eliminate a lot of the drive to to work, it could be an interesting topic.

Same problem as true/full democracy. It woulf be an anarchic government. The reason why we have never seen one of these systems function over any real period of time is that humanity is human and filled with human nature. This means that we as a race has not evolved sufficiently(and quite likely never will) to govern themselves without the need for the mechanism of centralized authority. There seems to be a mathmatetical property that dictates the larger the population the less effective pure democracies are. As population levels go up the need to break the people up into individual tribes that elect representatives forces the creation of republics.

Now Technology may change this but so far it has shown no sign of doing so. In fact the Interweb has shown that people will break off into their seperate little tribes naturally. As long as humans behave in this manner then we will never see a large scale and long lived anarchic government.

All of this being purely, IMO.

Phryxis wrote:Tell that to Indians of the Asian variety.

There's a caste system over there, but it also roughly correlates to darkness. The darker your skin is, the generally lower in social standing you're going to be.

At the same time, you've got Indians coming over to the US, and the rules are different. They're given jobs based on their skillset, and you can end up with darker skinned people senior to lighter skinned guys, supervising them, directing them, etc. It's not a comfortable situation for them.

In general, I think there are a lot of examples of race/appearance/heritage being used as a basis for class.

Hence the 'no real' part of my post. There are loads of ways in which people seperate themselves from others, and all of them are basically the same as the Indian caste system - artificial bs.

On the other hand the differences between people with money and people without are very, very real.

LordofHats wrote:What is exactly a Marxist Communism?

A Marxist Communist is a communist who wants to disassociate himself from all the communist regimes of the world.

Marx left a lot of gaps and holes in his theory of government partly because his work was never completed.

No, it was pretty complete, it was certainly as complete a Keynes or Smith or any of the other big heavies of economics. The mistake you're making, like most others tend to make, is assuming that Marx' primary academic work was arguing for a communist state. Marx was, more than anything else, an economic historian - the first economic historian, and his work was a study of history through an economic lens. His work there is excellent, his ideas of historical materialism are still relevant and shape much of the social sciences to this. This is despite his actual economic understanding being quite mediocre (look up the labour theory of value, it's incredibly daft).

Whether or not they were true communisms as Marx intended is somewhat irrelevant anyway. Most of the Marx's theories were based on assumptions that later turned out to be flawed. Even a true Marxist Communism, whatever that may be, probably still wouldn't work.

Again, not really. The Communist Manifesto contains an excellent summary of capitalism, that predicted it's inevitable outcomes a century in advance. There are certainly places where he was wrong, his idea of a communist manifesto relies on an assumption of an end of history, for instance.


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Kragura wrote:Ok so it seems that dakka pretty much agrees on communism by itself, but just to throw a spanner in the works, how about communism in an anarchic society.

Anarchism as viable system ludicrous impossibilty.

I'm well aware of the role Marx played in the development of Social Science. I had a rather super radical left wing hippy guy for a sociology teacher who never stopped mentioning it . And yes. He wore a bandana and tie-dye shirts. I am not joking. It looked really weird because he wore a tie too.

I was always under the impression though that while vital to the development of Sociology most of Marx's actual ideas concerning it and economics proved false or unprovable. I take it this isn't the case then?

LordofHats wrote:I'm well aware of the role Marx played in the development of Social Science. I had a rather super radical left wing hippy guy for a sociology teacher who never stopped mentioning it . And yes. He wore a bandana and tie-dye shirts. I am not joking. It looked really weird because he wore a tie too.

I was always under the impression though that while vital to the development of Sociology most of Marx's actual ideas concerning it and economics proved false or unprovable. I take it this isn't the case then?

It's social science, none of it is provable

Thing is, schools of thought are built over time, one person's ideas building on the thoughts of someone who's come before him. The knowledge of human society we have today started with Marx. It was Marx who first looked to explain history from economic perspective, and while many of his ideas such as the class struggle have since been adjusted considerably (mostly to account for additional complexities) the same is true of Einstein's theory of relativity.

The main problem is it sound great on paper but suck inpractice i also find it hard the hard working engineer makes the same as the fat fried and mclenin's. lol bad russia joke.

sebster wrote:
You think so? Interesting.

It's long been an argument in communist circles that economic class is the only real level of distinction between folk, and I tend to think it's one point where communism is right on the money.

In my experience class simply doesn't have the sort of emotional resonance that nationality does. I'm certainly more likely to socialize with people in my class, and therefore will have a greater connection to them (that is, those I know personally) on a personal level, but I don't take umbrage at the death of someone simply because they earn as much money as I do; whereas it seems common for people to do the same regarding others of the same nationality. Now, its possible that my experiences are unusual, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were given certain circumstances, but I've not encountered many people (outside self-identified communists) that spout off about the life quality of others in their class in other nations.

Now, its certainly possible to take a broad and qualified understanding of class which works to incorporate variables that the pure, Marxist notion misses (eg. PPP, social status, etc.) but I think that moves beyond a pure assessment of class a causal identity.


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focusedfire wrote:
Many countries have claimed to be communist but none have ever fit the base definition as originally conceived and described. It is like in the past when the US has neglected to describe itself as a republic and calls itself a democracy. Just because the country uses a pretty propaganda name to obscure the reality does not mean that it changes the base definition.

The US is a democracy, now anyway. Democracy and republic are not mutually exclusive terms.

focusedfire wrote:
Of course, this is just my perception based upon the classical definitions. If you believe that definitions should be changed to incorporate the propaganda of nations trying to hide their true nature then you will most likely dissagree with my view.

Of course, its also possible that someone might simply believe you to be incorrect, without having any interest in propaganda.


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LordofHats wrote:
I was always under the impression though that while vital to the development of Sociology most of Marx's actual ideas concerning it and economics proved false or unprovable. I take it this isn't the case then?

Its notable that much of what Marx predicted regarding capitalism and the force of the populace came to pass in the form of socialism. His mistake was assuming the shift towards a collective mentality was inexorable, and possessed of an end.

Kogwar wrote:The main problem is it sound great on paper but suck inpractice i also find it hard the hard working engineer makes the same as the fat fried and mclenin's. lol bad russia joke.

This is not true. I've even explained already in this thread. There is nothing in communist thought that dictates everyone must be paid the same. Could everyone please just get a basic understanding of what communism is before they start declaring they know what's wrong with it?

dogma wrote:In my experience class simply doesn't have the sort of emotional resonance that nationality does. I'm certainly more likely to socialize with people in my class, and therefore will have a greater connection to them (that is, those I know personally) on a personal level, but I don't take umbrage at the death of someone simply because they earn as much money as I do; whereas it seems common for people to do the same regarding others of the same nationality. Now, its possible that my experiences are unusual, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were given certain circumstances, but I've not encountered many people (outside self-identified communists) that spout off about the life quality of others in their class in other nations.

No, I think your experiences are likely representative of how most people view identity. I'd argue that how people do identify is not that accurate a how much they really have in common with someone else. That is to say, while most Australians are likely to identify with fellow Australians than with people of their same class, the truth is that a working class Australian probably has a life and a mindset much closer to that of an American working class person than an upper class Australian.

The communists would go on to claim that nations and ethnicity and the like is all false identification created by the capitalist ruling class to deflect tension away from the true cause of conflict - class. But they're all a bit silly

sebster wrote:I'd argue that how people do identify is not that accurate a how much they really have in common with someone else. That is to say, while most Australians are likely to identify with fellow Australians than with people of their same class, the truth is that a working class Australian probably has a life and a mindset much closer to that of an American working class person than an upper class Australian.

I'd argue the same, but add that what people believe to be true is often more important than what is true. If one of my employees feels that he has more in common with me than, say, a towel washer in Australia, than for all intents and purposes that belief is true; ie. the employee will behave as though his belief is true.

I think that above is more true of upper class people than lower class people simply due to accessibility. Basically, as an upper class member of society I can more easily access upper class members of other societies than lower class members of my societies can access their analogues. It is this discrepancy which fundamentally prevents class from being a unifying force.