Marxism for beginners

Marxism is not utopian it is materialist and therefore can only make educated guesses at what communism would be like.

The basis for communism is an advanced economy capable of filling everyone's needs and most of what they want, ie luxuries. The determining factor would be environmental sustainability.

Most people need the same obvious stuff. Their wants vary, mostly determined by what is feasible to them. People usually want a bit more than they have.

A socialist society would have to balance 3 factors

1. The number of hours everyone worked
2. The amount of luxuries they wanted
3. The environmental sustainability of production.

No, people could not have $1 billion yachts, obviously, but nobody would want one because you dont want what doesnt exist and what you have zero chance of getting.

What sort of things do you think people would want that they couldnt have?

You are actually falling into the same trap as utopians because you are not thinking like a materialist would, which is that the way people thing would be different in a communist society because our thinking derives from the real world around us.

 

You know it's a simple aspect of humanity; suppose billion dollar yachts don't exist, and we could even assume that everyone has somehow forgotten that they ever did exist... someone will still imagine them and do whatever it takes to get one.

The system you guys envision is pretty cool in theory, and may work in a computer game or whatnot, but humans in general are literally incapable of being satisfied. It's a dead horse that that history has been kicking for as long as we know.

When you look around, who do you know that is (or appears to be) completely content? Buddhist monks? Simple farmers? Heck, sweatshop workers who probably don't raise complaint simply for lack of real hope of change? The truth is, satisfaction is almost invariably the complete absence of materialism... and it's a virtue known only to a few people. What you're really proposing is more like a religion of happiness. The trouble is, no matter how "good" the news, no philosophy, no religion is capable of proselytizing every person.

I know not why I must repeat this, but it's as simple has human diversity; no system which requires complete conformity of character can survive a diverse population.

 

Paying taxes is not a crime. The power to tax is clearly delegated to our federal Congress.

 

Crime against the state, no, it's deeper than that---and it's not the taxed who would be to blame either! Taxes are an immorality in absolute terms, along with "tyranny of the majority" any other "legal" system which coerces one man to do the will of another without justification (i.e. having been found guilty, a criminal may be coerced to receive punishment, since he is forfeiting the right to innocence, but not indefinitely).

These are foundational philosophical concepts, independent of human legislation, and of course not everyone acknowledges them, whether it be the ignorant, or the state itself, in whose interest it is to maintain that it's own will is the absolutely highest authority.

 

I only agree with you to the extent we are not Angels who have no need for the expense of Government.

Paying taxes applies to those goods and services which are taxable.

 

Socialism does not require conformity. In fact capitalism requires plenty of conformity. If everyone was on the same wage, people would not want more than others. It would not make sense, why would they want more? There would be no mechanism to get more, and it would be against the culture. Culture would be different because it is rooted in a different material reality - the abolition of capitalism.

 

Could you please prove that is a part of "human nature", rather than a response promoted by the prevailing socioeconomic system? Our present societies go out of their way to provoke that kind of response in people.

 

If anything, socialism would leave people free to explore nonconformity. They would have more time to do what they wanted with their life.

 

There are examples of societies that have built-in systems for curbing ambition. Contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, for example, usually have some system of negative feedback for people who overproduce. Often ridicule.

If owning a billion dollar yacht earns you nothing but scorn and derision, no one would want one.

"Human nature" is a mostly imaginary concept. People vary greatly depending on they society they live in.

So you say, but cannot actually prove. To tell you the truth, the argument that people are "incapable of being satisfied" would be an argument against the idea that, say, welfare makes people lazy, or that the poor deserve the be poor because they haven't done what's required to earn more.

If human nature is really one of infinite demand, then clearly no person would content themselves with a low-paying job.

Because in agricultural/industrial societies, there is a false choice either between a rejection of materialism, or capitalist materialism. It's a false dilemma that captures many people, who cannot see that there are alternative forms of materialism.

And, moreover, if people are free to reject materialism entirely, then obviously they would also be free to accept socialist materialism.

Utterly incorrect. That could be considered the definition of culture, which does infect everyone exposed to it. Even if you define yourself as standing against the culture where you live, you are still defining yourself by it, and in relation to it.

People underestimate how deeply culture effects those who belong to it. It can provoke biological tendencies and responses--it can even effect brain structures. It not only colors your perceptions, it changes the very basic methods by which you perceive the world.

Socialism requires a shift in culture, not any kind of evolution of humanity, or limited approaches to wealth redistribution. It's not something that can be achieved in a few years with a political revolution. It will require decades, maybe centuries.

Which is obviously, utterly untrue, as evidenced by the existence of cultures.

 

Why would Socialism need to abolish Capitalism in any political-economy? A mixed-market economy provides much better "market" based metrics due to the "duopoly" involved, for example, our own republican form of government.

I agree with you that our culture and morals would be different, in a divine commune of Heaven on Earth than it is under our current regime.

 

Why? Because socialism is not a mixed economy. First of all you would take the big companies into public ownership, eg the top 500 companies in America or 200 in the UK. This would break the power of the capitalist class. You would then have to get them under democratic workers control.

Additionally any company that was threatening redundancies would be liable to nationalisation, as would any company doing things against the public interest eg causing pollution. External costs (eg pollution) are not really taken into account much in capitalism, but in socialism they can be.

The ultimate goal is to completely get rid of all capitalism and in the end, money. In a fully planned economy everything can be properly integrated for maximum efficiency.

 

I only agree that Communism may not be a mixed economy. There is no requirement for socialism to not employ forms of State capitalism.

How does your paradigm hope to put the right people in the right places at the right time, without also resorting to politics in modern times?

It seems, to me, that if we were already that moral, if not that holy, we would already have a zero percent tax on the incomes of real persons.

 

What objection can there be to utilizing natural public sector monopolies as public sector means of production with which to defray the cost of government?

 

Yeah, socialism is mixed, but not like we have ever seen in the world, there has never been a socialist country. It would be mixed in the sense that small companies wouldnt all get nationalised straight way. In fact it could take decades to get to that point, it depends how much resistance the small capitalists put up against the socialist regime. They would have to pay higher wages for example, where possible.


"How does your paradigm hope to put the right people in the right places at the right time, without also resorting to politics in modern times?"

Not sure what you mean "without also resorting to politics". Are you asking how people would decide what jobs to do and so on? You would have people planning this sort of stuff. You would have people training and vacancies like you do now. If you want to do a certain job you do the training and then go and get a job. The difference would be that we might not let people train for stuff there is no chance of getting a job in, eg if we need 10,000 brain surgeons we dont train 100,000.

No idea what you are saying about 0% tax.

 

I am not sure why you believe in socialism the way you seem to; from my perspective, Socialism is a requirement for States and Statism to exist. Merely having a public sector is a form of socialism, not capitalism.

 

Leftist loserism, socialism, communism, national socialist conservatism, progressive liberalism are all fails and are one form or another of Marxist communism in one way or another.

True American liberalism is the only way to go.

 

Sounds workable. Not!

 

I am glad our Founding Fathers enumerated only sufficient Socialism, to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.

 

I believe what I believe because I think Marx was right. Having a public sector doesnt mean you still dont have a capitalist country. The USA has a public sector but it is still a capitalist country. Capitalism cant function without it.

 

This is, of course, one conclusion, one possible extrapolation of what I said, but not necessary and not my intent. I believe I mentioned earlier that "some are never content with what they do, and some are content with doing nothing" or something like that. My point as an observer of human nature is that everyone is unique; literally every person's level of ambition and ability to satisfy differs in some way from the other billions of people.

Some people (evidently you, daniel, daft, and others) would be delighted to live in a "perfectly planned", egalitarian world. However, many others (maybe not even most) would be dissatisfied in one way or another. Capitalism is about embracing the fact that the sanity of the human mind demands a sense of accomplishment, freedom, and that one's actions have an impact on their world. Whether thieves or entrepreneurs, most people are not satisfied ending up with the hand dealt them, and this is what makes civilization so successful and at the same time colorful. A planned world looks like 1984, not the Renaissance...

 

Or more concise,the Workers State will wither away as will all class divisions which is the lower stage of Communism =Socialism after further development of true human global society will develop the Higher forms of Communism and then after that another Society will emerge ,but as we are so far removed historically from that stage of human social evolution description breaks down.

The possibility for that evolutionary progression is up for grabs NOW!

Society itself will not survive a Nuclear WW3,nor may the entire planet .

 

Socialists are for the Abolition of all states.Even the Workers State,the very meaning of Communism is Social Equality ,not the Stalinist equality of poverty,but the Marxist equality of plenty.

no human need live in Poverty,the crisis is one of Oversaturated markets ,Overproduction in everything and then more wastfull overproduction and waste of course ,33% of Global food production is used as landfill.no human need go without a proper diet,the resourse exists to day.Enough food for 10billion produced ,whilst 4billion humans go hungry out of 7billion.DOSEN"T MAKE SENSE Capitialism kills human ,Human must kill Capitialism to survive.

Its not a question of personal choice.

Its a question of Historical necessity.

 

Socialism is the state owned means of production, how could there be socialism without a state? Who would force the productive to support the non-productive?

Capitalism is the only form of economics in which ANYONE can succeed.

 

Two Trotskyist sectarians are lecturing Marxism for bourgeois philistines ! A conversation of a blind with a deaf !

 

I know the idea, the concept of communal living where everyone shares equally in labor as well as product, but you are simply dead wrong in thinking that it's even possible.

I don't mean to offend you personally, but the concept of harmonious living without any coercion is something humanity is literally incapable. Denying this requires faith in human evolution far beyond even that required by religion, since we have zero evidence of our race becoming more selfless, the fundamental requirement of opiated existence.