this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Because for the idea of communism to exists it would have to be globally, otherwise youd need a state and a definition of communism is a stateless and classless society.
A common misconception is to think that what the Soviets, Chinese, Cubans,, etc. were/are doing is communism, when in fact it's communists exercising state power to organize the economy in a state socialist, market socialist (or SWCC) etc. way. You can't just claim power and say it's communism now, in a context where globally capitalism and imperial forces exist. (See if you find and notable examples of anarchist/stateless societies that survived)
The cold war lasted a long time. Sure, pure communism is probably going to take a lot more time, but what these countries did (well ig I don't know about Cuba) is move away from it. Every political system needs some idea of implementation and transition, and of course defense. To say that it's impossible for a system to do that is conceding its outright utopicness.
I really don't know what you mean by "it would have to be globally". In anarchism, you solve communication with others by temporarily agreeing to have someone speak with other communities and rotating that person.
Move away how and were? The Soviets, Chinese, Cubans, definitely were/are socialist.
Yes and AES states managed to do so.
Frederick Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm
A new system will always exist within an old one. You cant proclaim communism/anarchism and think that other countries will just stand by idle. (See Rojava, etc.) In a world where most other countries are capitalist and go on imperialist emdevours, you're basically inviting them to colonize you, because you don't have a state apparatus to organize defense. Communism/anarchism can only be proclaimed at once and globally where adveserial forces to the working class had been overcome.
Communists in China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. are aware of it and are exercising state power to navigate these conditions. What they are doing is socialism, which ofc still has classes and it's own contradictions which are being resolved.
Yes, they’re socialist. No, they did not work towards communism. Brezhnev and Deng did not simplify government and declared the end of the era of working towards communism as well as a new era of practicing socialism. Sure, implementing communism would take a long time, but I don’t see how they’re working towards it instead of just improving on socialism.
I don’t know what AES is.
Before I read a full nonfiction book, I check its summary on Wikipedia or Goodreads to see if it’s worth reading. I don’t see how this book on socialism relates to the topic, which is how any system you can’t implement is utopic.
Volunteer militias. Stateless doesn’t mean people can’t organize. This applies to many kinds of work as well: roles on the railway have to constantly communicate with each other.
What do you mean by this? Specifically "improving on socialism"? Reading this I get the impression that you don't know what you're talking about, but would like to give you a chance to clarify.
Actually existing socialism. One party proletarian states lead by Marxists-Leninists.
Good that we agree that China, Soviet Russia, Cuba etc. Are Socialist. Since they obv were able to implement socialism they're not utopian. I recommend the book because I wasn't sure you were aware of that
Sounds utopian and not very effective to me when you have countries that have conscription and Military industrie. Can you give examples that exist today and how it can defense itself against such adversaries?
For example, China ended most collective ownership and switched to market socialism. It works, and the government regulates it quite well, but you also have a pretty authoritarian state that keeps consolidating its power. Now the market's taken for granted; its principles haven't changed towards communism in the decades since it's been implemented. That seems like abandoning the idea of implementing communism and just maintaining their socialist market economy for now.
I was talking about communism and how you claim that, for defense reasons, it can only be implemented globally. I think we agree that socialism doesn't dismantle the state and isn't utopic. I think we've been collectively bamboozled.
On military industry, of course that still exists while stateless. I don't need to stress how many tankies and War Thunder players there are online who'd happily start working on building or R&Ding military stuff. It's no different than any other industry except the massive amount of government funding, which would be useless in a stateless society where people are motivated by better means.
The United States has voluntary militaries and militias. China also has volunteer service, albeit de facto. These are some of the best militaries in the world.
The definition of socialism is when workers are the dominant class in society (i.e. the owners of the means of production aka collective ownership). So this sentence doesn't make sense to me.
Also China can be described as markert socialist but more accurately they have a mixed economy of SOEs, worker coops (e.g. Huawei), and privately run/capitalist enterprises (that have party members on board of directors).
Any state in the world is authoritarian. Because ANY type of organization requires authority. (Even volunteer militias). Read Engels Essay "On authority" for the Argument being made
Ok basically you're asking when Xi is going to press the communism button and I agree that they are keeping it at socialism for now.
Again communism is a higher stage and can't exist within a context of other countries being able to organize state power to invade a "communist" country.
I mean you know what class and class interests are, right? When you have landowners and capitalists and states that represent their interests, they will inevitably attack.
Bamboozled by whom? And what are we being bamboozled about? I'm so confused by this
Socialism will eventually dismantle the state and it wither away, when all contradictions and class interests have been resolved. (The state is an extension of class interests after all). You mention that socialism existed for decades and nothing happens, when capitalism, feudalism, slavery each existed for hundreds of years. Socialism is in its infancy still and has been struging to be born from the old system over the last decades (cold war, Operation Condor, Operation gładio, etc)
Yeah, I'll concede that market socialism was the wrong word. I swear I realized that and edited it before replying, bu apparently that didn't make it.
Saying that every state is authoritarian is missing the point. When we say that a state is authoritarian, we mean that relatively, the people are much more oppressed by the elite. Even anarchists only oppose hierarchical authority.
There was a misunderstanding where I said that anything you can't implement is utopic and you assumed that I meant socialism.
Can we talk about volunteer militias?
But are they? Yes, China has lifted a ton of people out of poverty, but as long as most employees don't own the means of production, they are being oppressed, and the hands of the means of production don't seem to have been transferring.
Sorry I disagree with trying to quantify "authority" in order to put in relation. It's becomes meaningless. Authority either exists or doesn't, it's a binary.
As I'm reading the link I see that the author compares Bakunins understaning of authority, to that of Engels. The Author's interpretation of Engel's text is, that it argues against anarchists, when in fact it argues against "anti-authoritarians" and therebay misunderstands it significantly lol (Ctrl+F "anarchist" yourself https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm). The author of your link further highlights their misunderstanding in the section "Does organisation imply the end of liberty?" and says "Engels argument proves too much. As every form of joint activity involves agreement and “subordination,” then life itself becomes “authoritarian.” Yes, Engels indeed proves that "authoritarian" is a meaningless term and authority can have different forms.Engels doesn't even say anything about wether organization ends liberty. Engels acturally argues that "authorty" transforms. "If we took Engels’ argument seriously then we would have to conclude that living makes freedom impossible!" That's not even what Engel's is saying in the text.
Engel's defintion of authority ("Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. [...]" is quite elegant. Organization Engel's defines as "combined action". Engels further asks the abstract question whether organization [combined action] is possible without authority [the imposition of the will of another].
In your link the author writes "However, Engels is simply confusing two different things, authority and agreement." and literally falls into "These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves." Further down your author writes: "For a given task, co-operation and joint activity may be required by its very nature." and uses and example of the organization of train networks. (Guess what example Engels used to showcase how authority is transformed?)
Read Engels yourself if you don't believe me. There's a qualitative difference between reading about Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and reading them.
Yes they are. Hardly seems oppressive, when Harvad's Long-term survey reveals Chinese government satisfaction
Yes it is. The fact that you have the state tightly regulate capitalism and outright forbidding the formation of a financial capitalist class (China's banks are public. Find out how Jack Ma is doing after they tried to ascend to financial capitalist by creating ANT pay), have a state that works in the interest of the majority (Stopping the Real Estate Bubble and make housing affordable, while with a 95% homeownership rate; Massive Public transport; Renweable engergies, etc.) and also encourages worker coops (e.g. Huawei) and China’s Revised Company Law looks very promising (Keep in mind it's the economist, but damn even that makes it sound so good https://archive.md/VIEPf ).
You can’t just make things binary. If I say billionaires are either taxed or not or say that socialism/happiness either exists or not and there’s no point quantifying or comparing it, you’d certainly disagree.
If you need clarification: when we say more authoritarian, we mean that the authority gets more upset when their authority is breached/potentially reached and enforces their authority a lot harder. Some escalating examples of such enforcement are: “the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law.”
The document I linked is about the much narrower topic on how "On Authority" does not refuteanarchy or eliminating the state. It's not supposed to be a refutation of the essay itself.
Yeah, because unlike America, most people don’t really care about politics or whether you can read Wikipedia. However, I’m a hacker-person, so I care that we have basically no direct representation and Tencent owns the lifeblood of everything online. Is the quality of life better than the USA? I think so. Does the government get more things done than the USA? Probably. Can people say what they want and organize what they want? Depends. Is the government controlled by the workers? Certainly not. I’ve been there for half of life, so please don’t lecture me on how life actually is there.
Yeah, they control all the finance. No, I don't see how that means the workers are getting more of or closer to getting the means of production. Unions have nearly no power. The third part of that law you sent, worker's representatives, just seems like extending the ruling elite's reach further. Not to mention that the housing bubble hasn't stopped. It's much better than the situation in the USA, sure, but it's crazy how the (actually pretty nice) microdistrict we live in continues to have prices rise even after a pretty big corruption scandal.
I'd certainly agree. You can't quantify "Authority". You can quantify billionairs (one can have more billions than another). You can't quantify "being taxed", you can however quantify the taxed amount. Also you can't quantify "socialism".
You can't quantify these either.
That's a very abstract question. When one in 15 is a CPC member the, PRCs government represent workers interests? Certainly.
Not what I'm saying? I gave you examples on how the state represents workers interests.
Good. They can be used as a wedge against the workers state as we saw in the Western toppling of the SU.
How so?
Then you're not following news. The fact that western media is screeching about how CNs real estate market crashed says otherwise.