Communism is the perfect form of government
Of course there have been many terrible communist systems in the past and some that continue into he present. But if we can try to ignore those for a moment, is communism not an excellent form of government if it were to be be executed fairly. In this scenario human error and greed is removed.
Comments (151)
Main reasons.
Anyway, Communism like Democracy, is hardly an iron cast item. There are many flavours. Your view seems rather superficial, is it? If not explain why would should care about your opinion.
Quoting TheDarkElf
Any system would work in this scenario, communist or otherwise.
I didn't vote...my choice was not there.
I think the American form of capitalism is close to disgusting...and I suspect that "the American form of capitalism" is where all capitalistic economies will eventually end if given enough time to mature.
Capitalism relies on unrelenting consumerism...and it relies on the major factor of production (entrepreneurship) to maximize profit...which means labor gets fucked. That is the rule of the road.
I personally think "same for everyone" would be a terrible idea...and communism has as its core "same for everyone."
I am not even interested in a fairer distribution of wealth as most people are. I do not care if 10 people ended up with 90% of the wealth...SO LONG AS EVERYONE ELSE HAS PLENTY.
Once we get to the point where everyone has plenty (which can be obtained by first insuring that everyone has sufficient)...then how the rest gets divvied up means beans to me.
I really wish you had included a "Sometimes good...sometimes not so good" choice.
Yeah I mean it's not like "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is one of the most famous communist slogans out there. No possible way.
How do you square that with greed? Can those who profess “greed is good” (which seems to be the main economic motto of the day) ever obtain what they consider to be plenty? To me needless to say, this being how most of the 1%-ers got there.
Then there’s greed-based competition* to be top-dog winner where everyone else is a looser of the so-conceived game of life. And the end-state of this greed-based competition in which one finally obtains happiness is in fact an illusory reality: an untruth or self-deception. But it does produce a lot of losing parties out there, and correlated misery.
* Loosely understood, there are other forms of completion: for maximized knowledge, understanding, wisdom, good social standing, physical and mental health, etc. But many such forms of competition are a) often ones where one competes against one’s own perceived limitations rather than against other beings for that which is desired and b) where what is gained is then in turn often shared with others via community for the maximized benefit to oneself, as well as to others. Point being, there’s very little winner-looser dichotomy, if any, in many such alternative forms of non-greed-based completion. As one example, scientists compete to discover stuff, but when a discovery is made it doesn’t (typically?) turn the discoverer into a victorious winner and all other scientists into losers. Rather, the whole community benefits.
You seem to think there is some substantive irreconcilable difference between what I said...and the Marx quote.
There really isn't.
I am just saying that I, personally, do not care about unequal distribution AFTER everyone has plenty. If every one has plenty...everyone will have his/her needs met. Some, particularly in communist countries seem to think that "unequal" equates with the dominance of the bourgeoisie over some ill-defined lesser class. So my comment that communism has "same for everyone" is not at odds with modern considerations about communism.
Are you disputing this...or are you just being an asshole and arguing because you are getting your doors blown off so often?
I certainly am not saying that insuring that everyone has plenty is going to be easy selling to the people of a country such as ours...where greed seems to dominate almost to the point where it is considered inevitable.
But I do suppose it can be accomplished.
Nobody has to work anywhere near as hard as many Americans have to...in order to subsist these days. Perhaps the lock-down will teach us something about that.
Fact is, though, that we have incorporated BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of willing slaves into our workforce making all the things we need and want (machines, robots, computers)...
...yet we are all working harder than we were before the slaves were incorporated.
A family of the 1950's had one breadwinner (usually the husband) who worked one job and earned enough to provide for shelter, food, clothing, transportation, communication, entertainment, insurance, education, limited vacations, and some savings.
Now we got both the husband and wife working (sometimes more than one job each) and those needs and wants are not being adequately met.
It is so disgusting a situation...that we should be engaged in a civil war to right it.
Well, I think there is no perfect. But I couldn't give a rat's tail whether people agree to it or not. Consent of the governed doesn't really matter to me. It doesn't matter to the people who run the world either. And actually, it doesn't matter to the average person. Most people don't consent to their form of government, but they go on living and not caring anyway.
In a governmental system where there is no human error the system would work flawlessly. The parameters for success or failure of a social system is wholly dependent upon humans.
The perfect murder, the perfect addiction...
No it literally is.
I used to think communism meant the "same for everyone". When I was six years old.
I'm not totally onboard with that either. I mean, there are factors which swing the world one direction or the other that are unrelated to humans. Like, viruses.
Again, the OP removed human error! It’s irrelevant what system of government exists if humans never er.
What are you asking me? I didn't say there is no human error. I just said that human error is not the only reason why systems fail.
lol What "hypothetical"? This isn't hypothetical. This is what's literally happening right now.
You repeatedly ignore the OP. Hello? Wake up!
The OP is like a recipe for an omelette that insists that no eggs must be broken in the process.
A democratic capitalistic system would be good too without human error or greed. It’s a no brainer, but certainly an interesting example of hoodwinking someone into the wrong answer by uses common biases against them.
Not really. Unless "no human error" means egalitarianism is somehow true.
Your post reminds me of an oldie I like. Man, time flies.
No, it definitely isn't...as I explained.
Almost any response I want to make to that would probably get me banned...so I'll just say...what you thought a decade ago may have changed significantly. But as you get older, things tend to settle down.
Here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8210/universal-basic-income-ubi/p1
This has been pointed out. Also, the title says ‘perfect’ and the post says ‘good’. It is clearly a purposeful trap or just poorly thought out post.
And there's an economic system that isn't?
Quoting Contra Mundum
Again, do you have a system in mind where wages are paid on the basis of effort?
I see your objection, but not your alternative.
Probably a better thought out thread? :D
Anarchism is the natural human state. We are where we are due to our anarchistic nature. A political reset may lead to something better, but I doubt it as the path we’ve found most useful has led us here.
I would strongly argue that there is ALWAYS a better governmental system. The day we stop striving for something better will be the day the human race either branches off in different directions and/or ceases exist.
Human society had come a bloody long way. We’ve shifted out political perspectives radically over the past few centuries, and centuries prior to that too.
I cannit even begin to imagine what the next few decades have in store for us. I do have a suspicion that we’ll see the concept of nation begin to shift as communication technologies have only recently hit a point that has quite a phenomenal reach.
Not only did they have to work...if they didn't, they'd often end up in a gulag.
The barter system.
The UBI concept probably lies in a socialist agenda, which itself lies between capitalism and communism.
A modern myth. Not even animals live without hierarchical structures.
Nor am I saying it is in anyway ‘ideal’ just a matter of fact about where we’ve come from. Children left unattended are quite anarchical, but eventually they will ‘organise’ themselves to some degree (not denying that for a second).
So you draw the distinction at the absence of positive laws/rights?
‘Rights’ and ‘laws’ are also something I’d avoid lumping together. In terms of general social groups there are undoubtedly behaviors that are more or less accepted (that’s going more into the idea of a ‘social contract’). Absence of positive laws? I wouldn’t say that, but clearly without firmly established positive laws we’re talking more about ‘anarchy’ than not.
Opposition to an authority and a hierarchy (mostly, if not exclusively, a specific to ‘governmental hierarchy/authority’) certainly central to what constitutes ‘anarchy’.
The use of my words was cast in a broad ethnological sense, which is admittedly misleading as this half-baked thread was aimed more at ‘hyperbolic’ (or more charitably put, ‘hypothetical’) representations of governmental structure.
So how did the seller get the item they're bartering?
That's none of your business.
Communism was a political, and social philosophic theory of the 19th century that was tested, and went really, really, really, really bad. It can't work.
Communism doesn't solve the problem of work. It simply creates a larger overseer of the work that people will perform. According to some though, work provides some sort of dignity or some self-reinforcing slogans of that nature. So uh, I guess the State will allow us to let us carry on our services of "dignity" for the "greater good" of the State. My question is what does this really solve?
Also, as you stated, people with greater capacity will simply become the leaders, direct things, make the things happen. The ones who don't have the capacity will slowly become siphoned off from power, and there will simply be another form of hierarchy- the ones that produce and the ones that need the help of the producers. Then the producers themselves won't even want to produce anymore. The whole thing collapses on its own weight and its back to some people having more wealth accumulation than others.
Communism, really even in its most pure form where there is no corruption, error or greed should be viewed as a wrecking ball of a movement. It must forcibly rip wealth and property from the people for redistribution, conformity in areas of religion, speech, thought has to be enforced by a totalitarian regime. In capitalism, people point to how it covertly manipulates and keeps you down but communism and alternatives overtly control. There simply isn't communism without this control, if people are free to do what they want then communism will not function.
I think some people focus on the economic aspect (mostly economic redistribution) of communism without looking at how it controls how you live your life. Class dynamics, cultural dynamics, private property, freedom for individuals and so on need to be managed and it cannot be managed without a level of violence and coercion.
The notion of peaceful hippie communism is a fantasy, the truth of communism is that it is a form of totalitarianism, it strips you of your rights and freedoms. Their means of doing this will always involve violence, imprisonment, etc. There is no outcome for communism other than the outcome which has already happened and the problem isn't people, it's the ideology.
Any human system from which the presumption of human error and greed (and more) are removed is ipso facto fantasy. I voted for communism being the perfect system (I'm a pinko commie), but no matter what system we have or wish for, it MUST account for real human nature. Real human nature, in my book, is actually on balance somewhat positive, but we can't forget the stuff that (on balance) is pretty negative.
So, a good society is made up of heathy people, the vast majority of whom have learned to keep their destructive urges in check and execute their benevolent urges intelligently. Quite a few societies, using various governmental forms, have managed to do that. Probably most societies have.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is a most excellent idea, but it has to be fleshed out in law, policy, institutions, and so forth. It doesn't just "happen".
What I said in my last post.
I just said this earlier:
Quoting schopenhauer1
List of communist ideologies
From where I sit, democratic-capitalism is far more of a failed experiment. Marx's theory of surplus value sheds some pretty clear light on why capitalism literally can't ever work.
Haha with regard to this, I’m not sure what you mean human error, but I agree that greed will be removed. But look at it this way, greed is the extreme motivation, so there is one flaw of communism which is it stifles work incentive, why will you work more if you reap the same results. During Soviet Russia, there was a brief period where Stalin slightly incorporated capitalism in his 4 year plans which resulted in more growth. So even the most communist state had to shift out of communism just to advance further.
Communism contradicts itself by implementing its regime through a hierarchy. Capitalism works effectively because its ethos is in line with hierarchical order and the fact that some are permitted be more wealthy and powerful than others. Hierarchy of responsibilities, power and authority naturally lead to a sense of "elite", social classes and corruption as well as blame and inequal appropriation of guilt and fault.
Communism would only work if there is no leader but rather a co-operative where everyone fulfills the same basic duties. Or at the very least a leader that a). Does not want to be a leader. b). Has no neccesity or desire for material wealth power or possessions. c) has the intellectual capacity to understand the gravity of such a position and appreciates truly the responsibility of providing for all. d). Is so humble, self aware and contemplative that they willingly accept their inevitable shortcomings e). Sharp enough to outwit anyone who is driven to overthrow them.
But as you can see these qualities are on the borderline of contradicting eachother and to find someone with such a unique set of skills is much less likely than finding someone driven by ego and the endless pursuit of power over others.
If you would say the same thing about national socialism, you would be banned.
Quoting TheDarkElf
Oh, so take out humans out of the picture? For whom are you making this thought experiment? If we talk about other species, there are a lot of obstacles there in portraying politics into their behavior.
Communism doesn't work. Theoretically and in reality. It genuinely isn't just a mere coincidence that all the various communist revolutions have ended in violence and despotism. The authoritarianism and violence is inherent to communism. The lack of safety valves in power is the obvious problem. That makes it so evil, if a political ideology is evil.
Socialism is different. Even if I'm not a great fan of socialism either, at least socialism can be debated.
As far as I remember, there were multiple attempts to build such a system, and they failed. There's a simple reason for it. The same amount of effort made by people of different abilities make different amount of value. And the things are even worse than that: actually, no one can tell whose effort "really" costs more or less, there's no way to measure.
Theft is unambiguously the basis of capitalism. Our ancestors could walk the land and hunt to provide for themselves and their families until someone had the wicked and clever idea of saying, "Actually this is mine now. If you want to eat, work for me." That is the great theft, the single greatest heist in history. Your "theft" is taking it back from the thieves, or the inheritors of thieves.
Which makes me sound like I'd vote for communism, and yet... I'd just rather be an honest capitalist than a dishonest one. My preference is for stable, non-growth-oriented capitalism with UBI (there, someone mentioned it), the latter based on the fact that stolen shared land and resources should be paid for. The thieves disagree, but that's criminals for you.
More like people started congregating in permanent villages, giving rise to the city state. Once people have permanent digs, ownership becomes more meaningful, as does the division of labor, money, accounting, governments and so on.
"Mine, Mine, Mine!": The Psychology of Property
Edit: Perhaps I'm being biased. I know little of communism I know people work (usually?) to, much like capitalism, be a sturdy and efficient gear to power a larger system/nation/idea. Still, you have 1 million people in one continent and 1 million people in another. Side by side. Friendly, yet competitive. Actually, if someone could help me further understand the differences I'd appreciate it and be able to offer a more informed response.
The precise history will depend on the place you're talking about. Here in England, land was seized by force by Roman forces and distributed among Roman officers and favoured locals. In the Americas, land was seized by force by European states and distributed between them, and sub-distributed via various means.
I think you'll find that generally means of survival are seized by force and force alone.
You're still thinking in the mindset of people whose finest accomplishment was defecating in holes surrounded by wooden barriers. It's easy to take something, sure. I can snatch a hat off a professional wrestler in a casual setting. Keeping it however, especially from others who would do the same, is a whole nother ballgame.
But there's no going back. It just goes from thieving bastard to either offspring or another thieving bastard. It's still theft.
Or a rich bastard obvs.
From which pious innocent saints was land stolen from first? Or is this an original sin that you are talking about?
And from who have you stolen your wealth, Kenosha Kid?
I don't see any religious element to my response.
Quoting ssu
I am one of the multitude who must labour for others in order to provide for my family. I am a peasant :)
As opposed to laboring for yourself to provide for your family? Let's say at the end of your labors your children inherit enough to start a bakery. At first they do all the labor, but after some success, they're able to hire others to help do the labor. Eventually, the business becomes very popular, with multiple stores, and now your children are managing the business instead of doing the day to day labor.
However, in the deep dark past one of your ancestral groups came across another group camping out on a fertile tract of land. That group refused to share, so your ancestors killed them and took the land for themselves.
Should your children's bakery be considered some form of theft because of that? We can't know, but probably all of our ancestries have various crimes in their past. Maybe the crime is civilization itself, but then again, it's not like hunters and gatherers never have conflicts.
But what does any of that matter to us now? We can't go back and undo it. We only know the more recent crimes recorded in history, to the extent they were. Recent in terms of all those thousands of years humans have been around.
And I'm talking about history where everyone involved is dead, and thus nobody can actually be held accountable.
If you are a peasant, then you farm land. And so, from who have you or your family stolen the land?
Eh? You think peasants owned the land they farmed? What?
Did you really think I'd be pro-inheritance with that viewpoint?
If you say YOU are a peasant, then really, do you or your family own the land?
As subsistence farming has long gone except in Third World countries, fewer and fewer people actually farm. Or are genuinely saying that you now farm rented fields without any fields of your own? Renting land a profession for few farmers and mainly large company-like farms. The 2 million farms in the US employ only 2,6 million people. Agricultural production is really transforming to an industry just like others.
Yes, technology is not kind to peasants. No, I'm a peasant only insofar as I must labour for someone else in order to feed and house my family. I may not take what the world has given us all as my ancestors did because The Man took it from them, gave it to his friends, and said we owed him for some reason.
Right. I thought you were being poetic as a peasant is a more of a historical name, but the correct definition is simply that you are an employee either working in the private or public sector. And of course you don't have to work for someone else. You could be the most annoying type of person to communists, social democrats and trade unions: namely an entrepreneur, a plumber or carpenter working for yourself. So your profession isn't really chained to the ground as with some historical peasant. (And do notice, peasants could own their lands, just like here in Finland and usually in the Nordic countries.)
Besides, being an employee doesn't at all make you part of any class. CEO's are employees, you know.
Plumbers and carpenters do work for someone else for the money they need to feed their families. It's just nicely abstracted now. Communists have plumbers, it's just that their ability to survive is not based on finding enough work to stay afloat. There aren't many self-employed plumbers left here, don't know about where you are.
As for entrepreneurs, it's a myth that you can just decide to become a successful entrepreneur. I was going to list lucky bastards in my enumeration of bastards, but they're only really lucky if they get rich, so I guess rich bastards covers it.
It is without doubt much more fair than the feudal system, which is why I'd prefer to be an honest capitalist than a communist. But all of this is still based on that original theft. People who inherent wealth believe they deserve it, but they don't. They are no more deserving of their inheritance than a trouserless scally playing in a gutter in a street, not entirely sure if its mother is home or not.
Welfare is a partial repayment of that theft, but UBI would be better. Perhaps because this is the world I have grown up in, as we all have, and therefore it seems to me to be reasonable, but a system that guarantees you will not starve because of that theft is actually better than the theft never having occurred, in which case we'd merely starve through our own incompetence. I am sure of one thing: when the zombie apocalypse happens and its down to personal survival, I am absolutely screwed!
He probably lives on rented land or else is renting money to pay for it with, and effectively rents the capital he works (no longer land since we’re no longer all farmers) inasmuch as he has to cede a portion of the value he creates to the owner of that capital. Just like a serf had to give a portion of his crops to the lord in order to be permitted to live and work on the lord’s land.
Who is this man? When did he take what he took? What technological advances and society were present when it happened?
Would you give up everything created and provided as a result to live back in that time under its boundaries and threats?
All people who provide any service to others do work for someone else. Plumbers, carpenters, lawyers, personal trainers, engineers. Whoever. Remember that theoretically there's not much difference in you buying a haircut and you employing a barber.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Thanks to capitalism, obviously you can CHOOSE a person or a firm, big or small, you want to provide the service you need. Or better to have that state plumber to fix your pipes at your home, who comes 5 months from now?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Yes, you do need things like a free market, the ability to choose a profession and be an entrepreneur in the field you want. Some professions naturally need regulation like doctors, pharmacists or layers. But training and official certificates aren't the major way to control a market as feudal corporations were or what limits a centrally planned economy creates.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Original theft or original sin? It's correct actually to put it in religious terms as the issue is quite religious in my view. The viewpoint comes more from a religious aspects than from practical measures of making the World better.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Why?
What is so utterly wrong in the fact that the seller of a service and the buyer of a service can reach an agreement what the price of the service is? Other one gets the service, other one gets income and both are happy.
And are you utterly incapable of thinking that a person that employs people is happy that he or she employs people that then get income? Or that people are genuinely happy if they have satisfied customers? Or is THE ONLY religiously acceptable form of employment a cooperative, as if any company is just theft? This is the problem in viewing any transaction as basically theft, original sin.
Just like a serf?
The problem is far too easily people interpret today to being serfs working for a lord. For them it's just a trendy figure of speech. For historical serfs this was something different. Remember that the lord in feudal system was also the judge and the law around. You simply didn't have the option to pack your stuff and work somewhere else. You couldn't just like that move into a city and start a business there.
What is lacking typically is the understanding just how feudalism was abolished by modern commerce, which is only replaced by very eager figures of speach of "modern day feudalism". As if our current time in the prosperous West with it's democratic structures and welfare state resembles the feudal past. We may have problems today, but they don't anything like under feudalism. Just as our present day farmers, those usually old people who work still with agriculture, are far away from the subsistence farming peasant of the past.
It's hardly debatable that the concentration of the ownership of land, and capital in general, can be traced back to theft in the form of such legal measures as enclosures and clearances, with accompanying punishment and repression of the victims (vagabonds, Luddites, etc).
The question we have to address is: radicalism or reform? That land ownership originates in theft might not justify the wholesale dispossession of the owners in one fell swoop. Conservatives and moderates can point to the Bolsheviks' terror-frenzy of dekulakization, starting with Lenin and culminating under Stalin, which I agree was a crime that no original theft can justify (even if the victims had primarily been rich landowners, as claimed). Also, such radical projects usually turn out to be disastrous. And yet, we do live in societies whose unequal distribution of ownership is a legacy of that original theft. So, what to do eh?
Quoting ssu
Feudalism was "abolished by modern commerce" in a specific way that I think justifies drawing a parallel between feudalism and capitalism in terms of the inequality of ownership, property relations, and the relations of production, despite the huge differences between the two systems in other ways.
The bourgeoisie didn't simply cry "feudalism is unfair and we hereby abolish it!", even if it seemed to take that form in certain places and historical moments (where the Enlightenment took its most radical and progressive form (jeez I do sound like a boring old Marxist eh)). What happened is that nobles, even e.g. Scottish clan chiefs, gradually began to find the benefits of capitalism more attractive than their traditional obligations as patriarchs, nobles, or vassals, and became capitalists, alongside and competing with the new capitalists who arose out of commerce. The peasants were out of luck: thus the working class was born.
I don't think anyone is denying that there are huge differences, or that we formally have freedoms that are often beneficial. They key point is, despite that, each of us is thrown into a world in which a small part of the population holds the land and capital, thanks to inheritance and class dominance. Whether one is an owner or, on the contrary, depends on the owners for one's livelihood, with virtually no say over the situation, is an accident of birth--also rather like feudalism.
That rather appeals to contingent qualities of a particular communist country, doesn't it? Which is irrelevant anyway, since my stated position is on the capitalist side of the argument. Or is your point that, since capitalism gets me a plumber more quickly, I have to concede that a moron who inherits half a billion dollars -- enough to buy a Presidency, say -- deserves that inheritance more than a Projects kid who could change the world if only he could stop his stomach from rumbling and hurting long enough to focus on class? It's difficult to join the dots on that one.
Quoting ssu
It's not a question of merely making the landscape correct. This is a psychological malfunction called the illusion of expertise. 200 people try to become successful entrepreneurs. Due to a thousand factors outside of anyone's control or consideration, one person makes it.
"Wow, that guy did something right! We should get him to write a book on how he did it, then we can read it and do the exact same thing and become rich!"
:D :D :D :) :) :) :| :| :|
Quoting ssu
Yes, I'm sure the Romans thought so to, without particularly strident religious views too, and certainly without the concept of original sin. If it makes sense to you, though, you and you can talk in those terms. I am not obliged to entertain such silliness.
Quoting ssu
You mean what is so wrong that we went from a condition where we could walk the land and hunt and gather to one where, if we wanted to eat, we had to labour for someone who suddenly claimed that land was his? Just that it's theft. Ask the Native Americans how they feel about it.
How is capitalism responsible for colonialism or land ownership?
Sorry, did the vagabonds or, ahem, Luddites own the land? Who was it stolen from? Or is the argument, as Proudhon put it, that property is a theft?
Quoting jamalrob
This is a different and vastly complex issue starting from things like annexation of whole countries or whatever, are the rights of small landowners or actual dwellers on the land upheld or not. When have people the right to own land or do they even have the right in the first place.
Quoting jamalrob
And capitalism surely has had it's problems too. But with forgetting that anything actually has happened between the time of feudalism and the present day, we don't look at the present problems, and possible solutions (especially from history) correctly.
Quoting jamalrob
Have you read Adam Smith? I think so, but I can be wrong.
Of course large transformations happen during a longer time scale than we notice.
I'd say that the ruling class, the aristocrats, were hoodwinked out of their power by the lure of capitalism which was a good thing, because otherwise you would have had in the UK a bloody Civil War again. The peasants and the poor? Well, let's remember again that they weren't as slaves forced into the factory. Likely as factory workers, however bad the conditions were then, did get better salaries than working the fields and literally facing hunger.
Quoting jamalrob
OK. And thus even my conservative party here is an adamant supporter of the welfare state.
So, is the answer Communism or is it capitalism, where we try to fix the problems, jamalrob?
Did I say it was?
Do I think taxation is theft? No, I don't.
Is there a problem in some people getting rich? No, as long the poorest don't get in absolute terms poorer. Social cohesion is important. And when wealth is created, it genuinely can happen that people are more prosperous: I assume both your and my great grandparents and their parents had less wealth than we have at similar age.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You think only 0,5% of entrepreneurs are successful? You think being a millionaire is this success or what? I would think you are talking about professional athletes or something.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I think you didn't get my point but anyway. You were the one saying you are a peasant, so...
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Well, I guess they TOO were quite stringent about just who uses their hunting grounds.
So you bring up this "someone who suddenly claimed that land was his". Who are you talking about? I think that it will go further than just our historical time as animals can be territorial also.
Vagabonds existed because the common land was stolen in the enclosures, with many peasants being evicted. Luddites protested the unfair situation that led to the devaluation of their skills, owing to the growing power of the capitalists as traditional economic relations were broken down. But yeah, I guess the treatment of the Luddites is not the best example of direct repression in defence of land-theft, as that battle had been mostly won already.
Quoting ssu
Obviously they were forced by circumstances, if not by direct coercion.
Quoting ssu
What you describe here is poor farmers being forced to work for capitalists.
In any case, I don't know if anyone is saying things were better for peasants than they were for the working class, although in some cases they probably were: peasants sometimes had a level of economic independence that factory workers could only dream of.
But yes, people all over the world go for urban living and factory work instead of staying in their villages. The degree to which they are forced varies geographically and historically. That doesn't go against my points.
Quoting ssu
Although it's irresistible, communism seems like a dangerous utopian dream if it's meant to be an immediate aim. Even as a distant goal it can serve to justify present-day suffering. I am not sure what the answer is ssu.
That was not the question or anything like it.
Quoting ssu
At the time during which a person who could self-provide suddenly discovered they had to labour for others in order to eat, did they become richer, poorer, or stay the same?
Quoting ssu
A fallacious argument, equivalent to saying, in response to the hypothetical "Fred and Sally were walking down a street...", "You think all women are called Sally?" The numbers were not the point. The point is that the will to become a successful entrepreneur making you become a successful entrepreneur is a myth.
Quoting ssu
Yes, insofar as I labour for others to eat. I do not hold inheritors of wealth responsible for the theft any more than I would hold a baby of European stock responsible for the near-genocide and theft of two continents. You seem to share Judaka's view that to say 'Y happened because of X' it follows that 'Y is responsible for X'. Capitalism is based on a theft; it did not perform the theft, rather it inherited from it.
Quoting ssu
Sure, tribalism precedes feudalism, one difference being that a group that that took a watering hole by force was on a level playing field with the next group that wanted to take that watering hole by force, another being that social groups as a whole controlled that watering hole, which sounds a bit too commie, doesn't it.
And things would have been better if they have stayed in the countryside without an industrial revolution? I but I agree that once the changes happened, people are forced by circumstances. But so are now people here who were farmers earlier choose jobs in the local town rather than try to earn a living by farming. Again circumstances, but not so desperate ones.
Quoting jamalrob
I've majored in economic history so yes, I can say that in general choosing to work in the factories was a major improvement for working the fields. Notice the differences with peasants that either owned their land or rented land and then those that were only agricultural labour. Especially for them a factory job was really a great opportunity. Even if peasants owned their land, you cannot divide the estate to your children perpetually as the land simply won't support them.
Quoting jamalrob
I only disagree with you on that I would say "because it's a dangerous utopian dream, it surely isn't irresistible".
But I can surely understand why people are drawn to it ...and other crazy ideas. My personal moment of "enlightenment" on this issue happened in Manila in the 80's when I was sixteen. I was standing in the middle of a very busy street in Old Manila with people brushing past me, when I saw something moving in this overflowing filthy gutter. I noticed it was a handicapped boy totally covered in filth and literally crawling in the sewage. I was just stunned with a "WTF"-moment and didn't know what to do until someone said that the bus we had been waiting was coming. In a society where nobody cares and just walks by I can see just why some people would be drawn to totally remold the whole society and have an especially deep hatred against the rich and those in power.
I think people understand that you need more to be in the situation that people are willing to pay for your services. Like starting with education and vocational training.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I assume you labour for yourself to eat.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Well, that's a good start.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Theft = the action or crime of stealing
Stealing = take another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
Hence, when you argue that capitalism is based on theft (meaning stealing), it should not be any wonder to you how I or Judaka interpret your thoughts the way we do (and now naturally speaking just on my behalf). There is someone you stole from if you steal something. And I've asked you again and again, who or what is the thief here and who is the one whose property has been stolen?
Or is then inheritance theft? Should the wealth you poses be given to the state or what? Do you genuinely think that the society would be more just if inheritance was forbidden? So you work all your life helping your mother and father in the shop they have until your father dies and the state reclaims the shop and you have to find work somewhere else and start from scratch with your mother?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So who had the right to the watering hole at the first place? And why do assume it was a "level playing field"?
Or, was ownership a way for two tribes to live peacefully side by side with mutually agreeing on that this watering hole is yours and that watering hole is ours? Or better thing would be just to say "F*k it, we'll fight you to death if we see you near any watering hole we use".
No. It's really annoying when you do this. Many things got worse for many people, but it doesn't follow that I think things would have been better had the industrial revolution never happened. It's really odd that you feel the need at every turn to stamp your foot and insist that capitalism is better than what came before. It is not black and white, obviously.
You minimize the trauma and destructiveness of capitalist ascendancy, but you don't even have to do that to defend the status quo.
It's still a myth.
Quoting ssu
No, I labour for others, as the majority of people do.
Quoting ssu
It is illogical to say that if I say there has been a theft, it follows I personally have been stolen from. You say you've asked again and again but I've stated it again and again. Ignoring the answer is not the same as not having received it.
Quoting ssu
I have also answered this at least twice.
Quoting ssu
You imagine it was peaceful? If you gotta believe it, you gotta believe it I guess. I'd think a glimpse at the natural world would disillusion you.
You understand that ownership of property by a social group is not capitalism, right?
You just feel like I'm stomping all the time for capitalism. But I'll take that as a compliment. :wink:
Problems, defects and excesses there are, but you should make the argument clear that things got worse for many people especially in the long run. Above all, the basic problem is that the most corrupt, unjust society with broken or nonexistent institutions is usually portrayed as "true capitalism" and the normal outcome of capitalism by socialists.
Let's take for example that not so long ago the majority of the people in both of our countries were working in agriculture. Now a few percent work in agriculture. So where are the roaming hordes of unemployed wandered the countryside? Did we even see them earlier? The fears of the luddites didn't materialize in the way they feared machines would take over. Because that take over has just continued for hundreds of years now. Yet seldom people understand that in the equation of supply there is also demand and if everybody is dirt poor, which can happen, there is no actual market for many things either.
Quoting jamalrob
Do we discuss the trauma and destructiveness of communism?
Do we even mention how non-marxist socialism has influenced quite a lot our present day system? Do we mention the creation of the welfare state, the large income transfers and labour laws as things that have corrected the faults in capitalism?
No.
The trendy thing is to compete in describing how worse things are now than before. And that nothing has changed. So forward to the barricades!
Yet you aren't a slave. You do get an income, I assume. And you do have the option to look for other work (I assume also).
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Someone has. Stealing MEANS that there is property.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
It would make only my point. Animals can only learn from experience that "better not go to that watering hole, because there's a really bad tempered territorial water buffalo there", only after the have been nearly stomped to death by the crazy water buffalo. Humans can agree on issues, either the way the water buffalo does it or even peacefully.
The right to own property and that it cannot arbitrarily taken away from you is one of the basic institutions necessary for a functioning society. If this institution isn't upheld, like if I just can bribe a judge and come with a paper that the land that you have lived all your life is actually mine, there are huge problems in the society. In many Third World countries the lack of these institution of property is a major problem. Which indeed itself is a great topic when discussing communism.
Thanks for your moderation, jamalrob. Hopefully we can find a topic to discuss later.
Yes. Slavery did not enter into my argument. Are you setting up a ridiculous dichotomy in which everyone is either a slave or works for themselves?
Quoting ssu
Does it? So you would argue it was all well and proper that European settlers took the land of Native Americans because it belonged to no one in particular? How horrid.
Quoting ssu
This is begging the question. Capitalism is a system of private ownership; communism a system of group ownership. The tribe with its water hole was a group.
Quoting ssu
But that was how land came into private ownership. Is your argument that it wasn't theft back then since you personally profit from it, but if someone were to do the same to you, well that would just be awful, wouldn't it?
Yours is a very confused argument. If you're perfectly in favour of men taking the land that fed and housed a people for themselves, I cannot see how you could object to me and my army taking your house. Very hypocritical.
In Canada we have like six parties we can choose to form government. Different for cities, provinces and the whole country. But whenever I vote I choose every party. My ballot gets quashed but I believe everyone’s right and everyone’s wrong so I’m not gunna make someone special.
Throughout history, the norm was that real property, i.e. land, could not be privately held. It was always held by the Band, Tribe, King or state. Individual real property is a relatively new phenomenon.
Now that doesn't mean that there weren't individual rights to certain uses of that land, so it's not a black and white issue of "full property" or "no property". However, European individualism is, historically, an anomaly.
That’s not a problem. That’s just a free market, which is not the problem with capitalism. The problem is that some people have fantastically more leverage than others in such agreements to the point that the “choices” they make are almost comparable to “your money or your life”. And that there are systemic mechanisms like rent (including interest) that continuously exaggerate differences in such leverage so that small random differences blow up over time into such huge differences which then become self-sustaining and entrenched.
Quoting ssu
I didn’t say that absolutely everything today is like it was under feudalism. You point out plenty of ways that it is better. But, without contradicting any of that, I was pointing out a way that it is not better. Capitalism — which is not the same thing as a free market, NB — is precisely the vestiges of feudalism that still persist. The dependency and subservience of those with less to those with more, because they must borrow a place to live and capital to labor upon in order to have the opportunity of participating in the “free” market.
Capitalism is a non-problem to anyone with enough capital, and great for anyone with more than enough. The problem is that that’s a tiny minority of the population.
No. You are talking that you are working for someone else and don't admit that you get a salary, income, be it large or small, for that.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
No. I say that the Native Americans saw it as their property too. I'm saying that property has existed, so when you argue that it has been stolen, where do you put the line where it wasn't stolen? I'm not sure why you don't get this.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Yet that group was a specific tribe or family in the tribe. And so are companies a system of group ownership. Just as cooperatives are also.
And here it ought to be mentioned that the UK (and hence the US) has gone through this history a little bit differently than Nordic countries where I come from.
In medieval times you had the Open Field System, yet use of the forests were open to everybody...and actually is even today in Finland (you can pick berries, mushrooms and wander without the permission of the land owner) with the law existing prior Christianity. And in many places the family or people that cut down the forest and turned the piece of land into a field GOT THE OWNERSHIP OF THAT FIELD. Aristocrats were few and far between and in all Nordic countries there was a strong independent peasantry. Feudalism wasn't so tight, just like in Russia where peasants could simply go away further into the forest if forced to. So it can be quite common that the same peasant family has farmed the same plot of land since the late 15th Century or earlier. So when KK assumes that all land is stolen, I beg to differ. Hence the situation is a bit different from let's say the British Isles, which was quite well turned into fields for agriculture when the Romans invaded. And unlike the UK, there was a the Great Partition of 1757 which transformed altogether and quickly the old Open Field-system. If I remember British history correctly, these changes took a long time in the British Isles.
Quoting Echarmion
This is true. For example until a revolution in the 1970's, land ownership in Imperial Ethiopia was quite by the lines of feudalism.
Yes. And when there are too many poor and few if any very rich, then at some time social cohesion is lost. Any power structure has to have enough support to stay alive. If it's just the few rich and their paid soldiers, the society is quite vulnerable to have a bad times ahead. And that's why we do have to have those safety valves called individual rights, democracy, independent legal system etc. to avoid a situation of tyranny by the ruling elite. Goes beyond simple capitalism.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes, but there is a difference between a loan shark and long term low interest debt from at least somewhat respectable bank or financial institution. I'd say one of the major reasons why many Third World countries stay poor is because people cannot get a decent loan for buying a home. If the majority of the people have to rent, just barely make enough to feed their family and are outside a normal functioning financial sector, not only is the society going to remain poor. The rich people, the few there are, are going to be similarly poor compared to other countries. Aggregate demand is important, you know.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I think this wasn't meant directly to you.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Globalized capitalism gets it's current form from many different things than feudalism. You can argue that it leads to a somewhat similar situation, that I can admit. This can be seen how capitalism has developed. Take ANY field or sector of the market, be it car manufacturing, making movies, computers or whatever and the situation is that roughly about 20 large oligopolies rule the global market and small producers or providers have large difficulties to compete with them, if the don't specialize in a narrow market. Oligopolies rule the World.
And these are all stock companies, which own each other and among the various institutional investors (hedge funds, pension funds etc.) there's the small list of your billionaires that for some reason or another have a lion's share of the stock.
I would dare to say that even if this looks like feudalism, it has little if anything to do with feudalism and especially how it came to be.
This applies plenty to first world countries too. A “decent loan” has to be one with low enough interest that it can actually be paid off eventually. In California here, I’d need to put hundreds of thousands of dollars down to get a loan on the remaining balance with interest not exceeding the cost of my current rent. It’s hard enough saving while paying that rent, so buying would mean it would take even longer to build up enough equity to stop owing for housing.
That is the main thing that turned me against capitalism: this realization that there is virtually no way out of continuously owing money just for the right to exist somewhere unless I magically got super rich overnight—and then that if I WAS super rich, I could get on the receiving end of people paying me in perpetuity to borrow my capital.
Do notice btw, the bigger and longer loans ordinary people can get, the more real estate will cost. The interesting phenomenon is that the modern good apartments or houses in a Third World country will cost roughly the same or even more. The difference is that those are for rich people.
And do notice that from this we get into a great topic of institutional racism. In my country no bank has in it's loan application a box for race/ethnicity. Hence how well these institutions work affects how well capitalism and the free market works in a society.
It's a simple matter of common sense for one familial generation to toil and acquire wealth in order to provide for the next generation, and so on. And they do deserve the wealth because it is often at great sacrifice such a feat is accomplished. Better yet, anyone, even the trouserless scally, can venture to begin such an enterprise, lest his children remain as impoverished as him.
This is the nature of family more than capitalism.
Also note that the very existence of rent increases the cost of real estate, because people who can afford to buy in cash (the rich) can then rent out to those who can't (the poor) for effortless profit, which makes owning more houses than you need more attractive.
If it weren't for rent, people who own houses they don't live in would have no use for them but as something to sell off. But no rich people (who already own homes to live in) would be buying them as rental properties, so the only people who you could sell them off to would be poor people, who need them to live in. Who won't be able to buy unless the terms are affordable enough (small enough overall price and small enough monthly payments). So the rich who own would-be rental properties would have no choice but to either take a total loss on their "investment", or else sell it off for cheap to the people who would actually want to buy it.
Conversely, take such a market that is already like that, and make rent an option, and the cost of housing goes up.
This phenomenon is true of all rental of scare commodities, and interest on loans is just rent on money, so the existence of interest causes the same problem.
I did not say that, don't be silly. I said I labour for others to provide for my family. I don't think it's likely to be inferred I work for goods.
Quoting ssu
Well, some tribes were well known for not having a concept of personal property of land, but that's fine. I'm glad we agree: land, and thus its means of provision, can be stolen from a people. And you would agree, then, that this did indeed happen in the Americas? And that the same land can be bought and inherited by the descendants of those thieves because of that theft? Because if so we're in violent agreement.
Can that be right? That Trump deserves his inheritance because someone else made sacrifices to bestow theirs?
Everyone deserves his inheritance because that is the will of the bestower.
Does everyone deserve a punch because that is the will of the puncher?
Is there a way to make people better, so that better societies can exist? Maybe, but progress toward "better humans" is slow and incremental with retrograde developments along the way.
in mass societies such as exist now, it's a balancing act to avoid too much control and not enough control.
Well, capitalism certainly didn't fuck the native Americans, colonialism did.
I think you're all over the place and so is @jamalrob and it's common to see when talking about capitalism.
Wealth inequality is older than history, resources were never distributed fairly in any society. The "theft" is a part of life, it's older than capitalism. Communism recognises the imbalance but does not give a satisfactory answer, capitalism ignores the imbalance and operates on it. However, you cannot blame capitalism for not solving the problem of power and how power works.
The more resources someone has, the more easily they acquire even more. The less someone has, the more difficult it is to acquire more.
Individuals ultimately act out their human nature across time. Through the preexisting conventions of power, technology, economy and so on. It was inevitable that people with power would use their power against the weak, it seems so pointless to have opinions about it.
Should inequity be redressed in modernity? Yeah, I believe the natural conclusion of capitalism is wealth redistribution through things like a UBI. If this doesn't happen, the alternatives could indeed be grim.
Land inequality is not an issue of capitalism, it's difficult to address, many countries in South America and Africa are totally ruined by land inequality due to colonialism. Meanwhile, in Singapore, the land is mostly owned by the government. The solution Singapore used was rather capitalist in nature, forced sales of land to the government.
America's colonial past is one fundamental reason for many persistent problems even today. However as Judaka said, colonialism isn't capitalism. Enlargement of ones territories really isn't only an endeavor with capitalistic countries.
You might look at the from the historical point of view of the Colonialists and the natives that lands were colonized and find yourself a thief and a victim. But go to the Eurasian landmass and where do you draw the line? Who is thief let's say in Iran? The descendants of the Timurids, the Mongols, the Muslims, the Sasanians, the Parthians, the Greeks?
What is notable that after the imperialism of the 19th Century, capitalism seldom works using direct force. Even after the occupation of Iraq, it's not only the American companies that pump oil from Iraq. American companies are a minority presence in the country, just one among many. The biggest foreign companies operating in volatile Iraq are CNPC (Chinese), Petronas (Malaysian), Lukoil (Russian), KOGAS (South Korean) among BP (British), Shell (Dutch) and Exxon (American). Hence Donald Trump is again in his ignorant dreamworld again when he talks that if US boots are on the ground, US should get the oil revenues too.
Capitalism today works globally through a rapid increase in cross-border movement of goods, services, technology, and capital along with companies operation in various countries. This makes many times the old 19th Century or early 20th Century criticism of capitalism a bit off.
It's not a counterargument though. Any capitalism in any part of the world at any time relied on destroying first the means of self-provision: the very theft I here claim. Colonialism was the violent means of the theft in the Americas, invasion in GB, and yes neither necessitated capitalism, but capitalism is derived on that theft. It was a necessary but insufficient condition. You cannot have a capitalism without first ruling out self-provision.
Quoting ssu
Iran is a theocracy. The parallel cannot be mysterious.
Quoting ssu
And do you think these modern Lords would have agreed to terms that the land and its resources belonged to everybody? Or does it rather necessitate that a minority can claim the power to bequeath those lands?
Quoting ssu
It makes no odds that I see. The fact that our ancestors mostly lacked technological capability to cross borders does not mean that they were socially barred from hunting and gathering anywhere they so pleased. The original settlers of the US crossed the Atlantic to hunt and gather, and without a pervasive system of private possession of land.
Both national socialism (fascism) and international socialism (communism) are totalitarian systems of government. Totalitarian systems of government put the rights, interests, values, and economic welfare of the state above the rights, interests, values, and economic welfare of their citizens. Both the fascist and communist forms of state totalitarianism seek to exercise absolute control over each and every aspect of their citizens’ lives from cradle to grave.
Citizens exist solely to serve the state, the state does not exist solely to serve the citizens. Under such systems, citizens’ rights do not exist; only states’ rights and citizens’ responsibilities as defined by the state, exist.
Whatever the fascist or communist state permits its citizens to establish, produce, buy, or sell economically must, first and foremost, directly benefit and enrich the state. The state is the only legitimate entrepreneur permitted in a totalitarian society. All the rest work for the state.
Under fascism and communism, the police, the legislature, the judiciary, all branches of the military, all forms of culture, education, entertainment, science, social interaction, and informational media must be tightly controlled and regulated by the state. Everything within the state, nothing outside the state!
In fact, whoever dares to operate outside of this comprehensive totalitarian context will be re-educated or destroyed. And, as a matter of historical fact, under both systems MILLIONS of lives have, in fact, been destroyed
Now, please try to convince me why such oppressive systems of government should be preferred to the democratic, free enterprise system of government of the United States of America.
Get ready for some ignorant replies :P
Yes it has, Ancient Greece was a direct democracy. (The "Ancient" is for "no more/failed state").
Perhaps a non-totalitarian communism has never been tried in practice because real grownups know that such a thing is really nothing more than a utopian fairy tale foisted among the gullible by ideological wolves in sheep's clothing. Isn't the true ethos of communism the purported DICTATORSHIP of the proletariat? And don't real grownups also know that dictatorships are, by their very nature, inherently totalitarian, no matter who wields them? The government where I live is based upon a democratic system of checks and balances, a constitution, a bill of rights, and a popular vote at the local, state, and federal levels. Thank you for feeling happy for me. I'm overjoyed!!!!!
Basically the process of instating a communist system is to work towards anarchy until the old power structure is toppled. As soon as that power vacuum emerges the new regime takes its place. It's hilarious that some people think it's possible to have a million people on a ship, and a million captains. There will ALWAYS be a top-down hierarchy in any power structure, otherwise it would be too weak to hold its position.
Well said!!!!! Hmmmmm!!!! Kinda' like what's happening today in the USA? N'est-ce Pas?
It's what happens in every political system that involves the public at all. Democracy moves towards anarchy because it's an easy sell; you're appealing to public opinion and what you're selling is power to the people.
Because it doesn't exist.
Quoting paganarcher
Never heard of the proletarian dictatorship? You don't have to be a Friedrich Hayek to understand that the dictatorship of the proletariat will destroy personal freedom as completely as does an autocracy. Add to the ideology a "class enemy" and class struggle, and you surely will have a dictatorship.
Besides, why consider something to work when we aren't "grown up enough" for it to work?
Communist ideology stresses how crucial it is to bring about "classless societies." Instead, at most, it seems to have repeatedly established "societies that have no class."
Yes, by the extermination of unwanted classes.
Tell Chinese Virologist Li-Meng Yan how wonderful and desirable the communist state is!!!!!
The contemporary version of the method for bringing about a Communist revolution in the USA is in line with the thinking of Antonio Gramsci and the Cultural Marxists, not with the thinking of Lenin (instigating violent economic revolution).
Today, the preferred method among Cultural Marxists is to bring about a Communist revolution through the infiltration and the subversion of the traditional, prevailing cultural values that support and help define our educational system at all levels, our economic system, our historical memory and identity, our military, our kinds of entertainment, our types of news media, our Judeo-Christian religious values, our public taste and moral standards, our Constitutional rights, our executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and the separation of powers.
I think it’s more in line with a sort of Blanquism: In effect, revolution for the sake of revolution, without any care for what society may look like after. It resembles the paradigm of the typical revolutionary activism, but adorned with a new vocabulary and made public with increasingly diminished returns.
That's a lot of infiltration and subversion.
But first, who are the cultural marxists?
What defines the difference from a cultural marxist and let's say a social democrat (or in the American style, democratic socialist)? In history and still there's quite a divide between social democrats and the marxists.
Or do you think that it's only cultural marxists that change our prevailing cultural values? Could those cultural values change not instigated by some specific people, but change as the environment, the economy and our society changes around us?
Furthermore, the idea that they were not really communism is very arrogant. A person making this statement means that Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, and Mao didn't know what they were doing but he/she knows. Just preposterous.
It certainly is! But that's what I see when I look around. A rose by any other name! I perceive no clear divide ideologically, just shades of difference, or degrees of extremism. They all seek to demolish and replace the best (certainly not the most perfect) system of governance yet devised by humanity with what? More centralized, more totalitarian versions of governance based upon political correctness, cancel culture, group think, and even mindless violence?
As it was intended by the Founding Fathers and as it is structured still to this day, our system of governance does allow for significant change to occur through new legislation, through the courts, and through the vote!
I think that you shouldn't the same mistake that leftist people do when talking about the right. Not everybody on the right is marching with tiki-torches fearing the jews will replace them, and so aren't the people on the left a homogenous mob.
I have to disagree with you, because I do see a clear ideological divide with someone supporting social democracy and someone supporting marxism or anarchy. The social democrat like wouldn't be for abolishing capitalism and replacing it with central planning, he or she likely will want to "curb the excesses" of capitalism, focus on income distribution and implement social welfare programs. That's not demolishing the system of your governance. The marxist genuinely wants to replace the capitalist system and likely is very hostile towards the social democrat. The anarchist on the other hand, hates both of them and wants to get rid of the existing society itself altogether.
Quoting charles ferraro
And do notice that many leftists do think so too and want to further their agenda exactly through the democratic process. And have no trouble with the values that the US was based on (the constitution and so on).
That's not what is said.
What I said is that communism historically has lead to dictatorship and that this has happened is evident from the ideology itself. Not that there aren't other ways to get a dictatorship (which there are many). The simple fact is that once you start to demolish the institution of private property, you will get a backlash and you have to resort to violence. Marxism, that is believing that Marx was correct on the way how capitalism is overthrown and we get to communism, will basically create that dictatorship: you have a class enemy, you start with that juxtaposition, you have a proletariat that has to form a dictatorship and Marx doesn't believe that the transformation will be peaceful.
This murderous system has been tried extensively during the 20th century and is still being tried in North Korea and China. Even now, China has over 1 million Muslims in concentration camps. All in the name of Marxism.
Marxism is a flawed philosophy and a catastrophic failure. In praxis, It replaces established elites by a new one - the communist party: Intellectual bureaucrats that claim "true marxism" was never implemented, but it will work this time... as soon as they murder all that oppose their new interpretation of communism.
One could argue that Socialism and Democracy are inherently antithetic concepts.
Socialism is nothing more than a provisional form of totalitarian International Socialism/Communism or, for that matter, a provisional form of totalitarian National Socialism/Fascism.
Both ideologies seek to gradually infiltrate and weaken non-totalitarian democracies by using the latter's very own democratic institutions against them.
The Marxist views the Socialist as being a much too TIMID ideological brother, but an ideological brother nonetheless, and views the Fascist as distorting and betraying the Communist ideology by being a much too Nationalist and Racist Socialist, but a Socialist, nonetheless.
No. It simply isn't.
That isn't what the left in it's entirety is. You have to look at if from a wider more thruthful perspective.
You are totally forgetting how a crucial and long standing role social democrats have had in capitalist Western Europe. The United Kingdom has had eight labour administrations with labour prime ministers and democracy has survived in the UK. France has had three socialist Presidents: Auriol, Miterrand and Hollande. Germany has had eight chancellors from the social democrats last being Helmut Schimdt and Gerhard Schröder (and typically erraneously though Angela Merkel is from the CDU). Sweden has had nearly all of the 20th Century the Social Democrats as the largest party with even getting twice (1940 and 1970) and absolute majority in the elections. Still, Sweden, the UK, Germany and France and other West European countries have remained capitalist and have not gone the way of Venezuela.
And during the 20th Century Marxist Leninists opposed Social Democrats and vice versa, which can be seen from this German election poster from the 1930's, where both communists and nazis are depicted (rather correctly, actually) as the enemies of democracy:
Hence if you argue that socialist (meaning social democrats) are nothing more that a provisional form of totalitarians, you might in the same way bunch every conservative and right wing person to be a nazi. And from there it's meaningless to continue forward any discussion.
Today, the Socialist controlled Democratic Party condones, with deafening silence, the outrageous rioting, violence, and attempted culture destruction fomented and perpetrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (both of which, by the way, were founded and funded by self-proclaimed Communists) throughout our democratic controlled major cities.
These have become the militant wing (street fighting goons) of what has now transformed into the Sozialdemokraten Party of the U.S.A. If Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi turn any further to the left, pressured by AOC and her political ilk, they'll simply fall off the cliff. Clearly, the trend is toward totalitarianism: cancel culture, political correctness, on-campus assault and battery, on-campus censorship, defund the police, etc.
"You shall know them by what they do, not by what they say," has never been truer.