Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

Force is subjective precisely because Cambodia and USSR used it without legal imperative and without explaining why they needed it while other socialists could go peacefully.

You are correct.

If you read first the strangely truncated way how Deepsepia has published only a part of Engels' original text, I ask you to fully read it following the link provided by Deepsepia. (It lasts 5 minutes to totally read it.)

Here is a part of Engels text that Deepsepia (and that's not the first time), has deliberately not published.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. [...]

By the way.... Deepsepia mentionned Karl Kautsky as a "democratic Communist".

Originally Posted by deepsepia

[...] so called "democratic Communists" -- people like Karl Kautsky-- recognized this[...]

That's one more time a manipulation.

Karl Kautsky was inter alia the secretary of Friedrich Engels but also a very important member of the German Socio-democrat Party (SPD) and considered as an "Orthodox Marxist".

When Deepsepia tells you:

Originally Posted by deepsepia

You seem to be confusing Marxism with Social Democracy. They're not at all the same thing.

You don't confuse anything.
German Socio-Democrat Party (SAP then renamed SPD) was cofonded in 1875 by Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel (friends of Karl Marx, who claimed themselves as Marxists) and Ferdinand Lassalle.
Social Democracy was highly influenced by Marx concepts thanks to people like Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel, Karl Kautsky or Hugo Haase.

Les théories sociales et économiques développées par Karl Marx, leur développement historique, ainsi que les concepts révolutionnaires en découlant marquent profondément la sociale-démocratie jusqu'à la seconde moitié du XXe siècle.

google translate

The social and economic theories developed by Karl Marx, their historical development, and the resulting revolutionary concepts profoundly mark social democracy until the second half of the twentieth century.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

You are correct.

If you read first the strangely truncated way how Deepsepia has published only a part of Engels' original text, I ask you to fully read it following the link provided by Deepsepia. (It lasts 5 minutes to totally read it.)

Not "strangely truncated", because the part I omitted are obviously false, but I'll dig into it if you like. Examining how wrong Engels was about how Marxist states would behave when they actually gained power is only more evidence for how flawed a project it is.

Originally Posted by Friedrich Engels

All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society

Democratic Socialists don't agree to anything like that at all as an ambition. If you look at, say, the Swedish Socialists, Bernie Sanders or a typical Labour Party in the West, there's not even the remotest suggestion that the State will "disappear", that's not even a stated goal

And Marxists in power never achieved anything like that.

So all that Marxists in power ever achieved was the bayonets and coercion part.

"The State withers away" . . . was something the Marxists always said would happen "sometime in the future" -- and never did.

What did "wither away" in the real world of the nations Marxists governed?

The "class enemies" they murdered and unfortunate peasants they starved.

See Lenin: "State and Revolution"; Lenin comments directly on Engels-- and unlike Engels, he actually ran a country.

Originally Posted by V.I. Lenin

The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The abolition of the proletarian state, i.e., of the state in general, is impossible except through the process of “withering away".

https://www.marxists.org/archive/len...ev/ch01.htm#s4

Now Lenin did deliver the "violent revolution". But did he or his successors deliver the "process of withering away?"

Did the State in the Soviet Union ever "wither away"? Did it ever become less all encompassing?

No

Has it ever "withered away" in any nation where Marxists come to power?

No.

So: it doesn't happen.

All you have is a one party state that owns all the property, must approve every transaction and cannot be challenged by law.

That's your recipe for tyranny.

Engels thought something would happen which we can now say, with a century of experience of Marxists in power, never happens. But the bayonets and coercion part of the revolution-- well we have abundant experience with that.

Marxists reliably deliver the bayonets, and they never deliver a State which "withers away".

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by SoIGotTheGroov

Because some people still pretends some parts of the earth belongs to them. Greed, greed, greed...


When people will stop thinking that "private property" is the norm, then humanity will, maybe ! be a better "concept".


Am I nihilist ? for sure, we are our own problem, and also our own solution to that problem, how coool is that ? we have solutions, but we stubborns idiots think "private property" , "brute force", and so on... maybe the right solution is there: let the stubborns idiots collapse the world and humanity, and please do it quickly, that's probably the best thing to do for those who are not responsible for all that (xyzde69 knows what I'm talking about here...).

So.

No private property. Inter-alia, this presumably must also mean no rule of law.

Sir John Falstaff: Let us take any man's horses! The laws of England are at our commandment. ~ Henry IV Part Two

Without private property you cannot satisfy even the first tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is by abolishing private property and destroying the rule of law that you can most quickly bring about the collapse of the world and humanity - for example the Year Zero in Cambodia.

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Without private property you cannot satisfy even the first tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is by abolishing private property and destroying the rule of law that you can most quickly bring about the collapse of the world and humanity - for example the Year Zero in Cambodia.

To counter this suggestion we need to dig at the property's history, to understand what property actually means.

Again and again I return you to the apes. Gorillas are territorial and also guard their mates. But could their territory be compared to civilized property?
Gorilla's property= a land plot where it feeds. It migrates and occupies another plot. So compare it with the soup bowl. Each feeds from a separate bowl for sake of efficiency and hygiene (ie basic sense of individual).

Primatologists shy away from compiling a cadaster roll of gorilla's properties. I'm still unsure do these beasts divide all of Africa among themselves? But it is generally concluded that the plot's size correlates with the beast's size and the extent of its family. Larger ones need more leaves so claim larger plots.

I'm still unsure whether all gorillas get the same ration, whether there are gourmands. Would a gorilla search a particular fruit and bemoan if it's absent at its own plot? But they do migrate in search of food so they have enough unoccupied land.

So, a number of high points about Gorilla sense of property:

1) constantly changing boundaries, no inheritance
2) high dispersal, plenty of empty land
3) no property where not physically present


I once got an interesting article (Robbins, 1999) where the author studied a multi-male gorilla group and described as "mating aggression" mere presence of a male near the copulating pair.
BUT this was not aggression!! It was mere curiosity, poor manners a human might say.
The beasts are always curious what happens there in the leaves.
Such observation stopped copulation in some cases but not in others! So the gorillas react differently depending on their inner morality, they do not forge dogmas and customs!

A meeting between two gorilla groups might result in==avoidance, grooming and population transfer, and only rarely direct attacks.
Attacking will depend on individual's personality.

[SoIGotTheGroov]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

At least it said nice things, not like ours, that still defend the exploitations of the man by the man, of the woman by the man, of the immigrant by the local, on the animal by the man.

Could you please tell me, why we can't write (or hardly write in more democratic countries) super fair Constitutions ?

Few days ago, I've listened a French writer called "Aymeric Caron".
He used a very pertinent definition about our modern "democracies".
They are "soft totalitarianisms".

Just few cases among others that demonstrate his definition:

1) A majority of European people are against nuclear plants. Several governments do not respect population wish.

2) In a huge majority of jobs, women are still less paid than men for the same job. Governments do not impose by laws private enterprises not abusing of this form of wage dumping.

3) According to a lot of surveys, majority of Spanish and French people are against bullfighting and want to free dolphins and orcas. Governments don't ratify laws not permitting animal abuse.

4) etc....


Just tell me what are the positive facts having several parties apart dividing to better reign ?

How... in your country can you defend the Republican Party ? What is fair in this party ?
If they were unique, human exploitation would be more than tolerated.

And to add a final point to all that, Nicolas Hulot just "left the building" this morning. He was the leading voice of ecology in Europe (french minister) in an ultra capitalist government. He rightly said that capitalism wasn't compatible with the actual earth's state of urgency.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by SoIGotTheGroov

And to add a final point to all that, Nicolas Hulot just "left the building" this morning. He was the leading voice of ecology in Europe (french minister) in an ultra capitalist government. He rightly said that capitalism wasn't compatible with the actual earth's state of urgency.

No French government, past or present, has been "ultra-capitalist" -- the State sector in France has been very large since Louis XIV.

Market economies are far cleaner places than Marxist ones, so I'm not sure what he was talking about. When the State owns everything, nothing is regulated with any vigor.

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

No French government, past or present, has been "ultra-capitalist" -- the State sector in France has been very large since Louis XIV.

Market economies are far cleaner places than Marxist ones, so I'm not sure what he was talking about. When the State owns everything, nothing is regulated with any vigor.

This mantra's origins will be very interesting to discover. Praising the state in notions of "centralism-progress" and quickly changing sides when talking of socialism? Ain't the French state business running perfectly? Wasn't first settlers in US and Australia ruled by state? In fact, you can see the state as one big capitalist owner.

Vigor is determined neither by ownership nor by money.
Everything is decided by social dogmas - this is what differs man from apes.

As I've posted earlier, gorillas behave according to personal decisions and personal responsibility. Some may not like being observed while copulating and will chase the observer away - yet no-one ever considers revenge because it is dangerous. Yet others are ok with being observed, and the two opinions do not coincide (except, of course, in gorilla's table talk).

In humans, strangely enough emerges a dogma. So it might be decreed that the behavior described for gorillas above is absolutely prohibited. Once dogma is set, popular opinion inclines to follow it, so no more truly personal decisions.

Ok, let's say humans are not gorilla. Let's say that every civilized thing has a deep meaning and economic usefulness. But then I would like to know what underlying conditions change when the dogmas get the diametrically opposite direction.


Take ancient Greek wars. Terrible, blatant, almost annual. Famous Pyrrhus of Epirus held Macedonia and Italy yet perished taking miniscule Argos - he truly believed in the necessity of annual war, whether large or small. Once Greeks got unified by Rome - the war still continued, this time over Roman civil disputes.

But come Octavian, and no chronicle mentions any new war in Greece. Why?
One would try to explain with economic motives, but rebellions continued in other regions (Palestine, Batavia, Germania, Britannia) so wars defined the epoch everywhere except Greece.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

This mantra's origins will be very interesting to discover. Praising the state in notions of "centralism-progress" and quickly changing sides when talking of socialism? Ain't the French state business running perfectly? Wasn't first settlers in US and Australia ruled by state? In fact, you can see the state as one big capitalist owner.

No, not remotely true of the American colonies, each of which had its own idiosyncratic charter and each was almost entirely self-governing. They looked to London for matters of war and peace,international relations and some foreign trade issues -- though its precisely their dispute with London over trade that leads to the Revolution.

What you're saying is more true of early modern France -- if you look at the industrial development of France in the 18th century, it is essentially driven by demand from the State, that is the Crown, and supplied by artisanal workers and State owned factories.

But of course, that's precisely the reason that France falls ever farther behind Britain in industrial development. If you read French political economists of the 18th century, they're acutely aware that they began the century as by far the wealthiest nation in Europe, but little Britain is fast eclipsing them.

That's what Napoleon is referring to when he calls England a "nation of shopkeepers" -- petit bourgeois business people.

So the experiment has been run and the decentralized and commercial British lapped the French-- even though the French started out with huge advantages and much greater wealth.

So its certainly true to say that France was remarkably well governed in the time of Louis-- men like Nicholas Colbert were able stewards of the State's interests

But that leads to the observation that technocratic, well governed France never produces a Robert Stephenson, and is left playing catchup up to the present moment. And despite all that "good government", when a tax dispute arises in France, it ends up with the King's head in a basket . . . meanwhile the Hanover Kings, though far less powerful than the Bourbons, still sit on their throne today. Turns out, its better _not_ to control every last thing.

When the State controls everything, innovation fails . . .

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

When the State controls everything, innovation fails . . .

In a true communist state this wouldn't be the case, we don't need more innovation, too many products already, more modern crap harms earth

Fuck What am I saying, quick, someone hit me in the head with a sledge hammer twice, once from each side

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

No French government, past or present, has been "ultra-capitalist" -- the State sector in France has been very large since Louis XIV.

Market economies are far cleaner places than Marxist ones, so I'm not sure what he was talking about. When the State owns everything, nothing is regulated with any vigor.

Here is the beginning of his interview:

Radio reporter: - Can you explain to me why rationally it is not the general mobilization against these phenomena and for the climate?

State Minister of Ecology: - You will have an answer that is very brief. No.

Radio reporter: - It's impossible to explain?

State Minister of Ecology: - I do not understand. I do not understand that we are both globally present, at the gestation of a well-announced tragedy, in a form of indifference.
The planet is becoming an oven. Our natural resources are running out. Biodiversity melts like snow in the sun and it is not always apprehended as a priority issue and especially to be very sincere, what I say is true for the international community, we strive to maintain, even revive, a model market economy, which is the cause of all these disorders.