this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Is that the utopian vision or something claimed to be possibly achievable?
There's no utopian vision advocated for by Communist philosophers. They talk exactly about how this would come through. So yes, they speak about it as an achievable and feasible thing.
So only after a period of acclamation (violent or not, irrelevant) will society reach this state.
Ok.
How do you deal with resistance? From other people to other nations while you de-nation-fy?
The idea is that these socioeconomic orders are global. Capitalism today is global. Even if a country today tries to do not-capitalism, it still must engage in the capitalist sphere, doing trade with them, using money system, debt, and producing purely for the purpose of selling. These are aspects of capitalism we stuck with until the global order isn't capitalism.
So communism would not come about unless it is global. In which case the question of "other countries" would not apply. You can assume that for whatever reason, a breakaway bunch decide to revert back to capitalism, but that would not go well. Why? Why would anyone whose needs are fully met and their entire time is only spent doing things for their own interests and community decide "I actually wish I had to give most my time to a capitalist in exchange for money that allows me to buy my needs"? For one, money wouldn't exist in communism, so that part would not even appeal you. Capitalism only has the upper hand because it is already the global system. Once it is overthrown, it is the reverse.
Obviously a society will put guards to deal with lunatics wanting to destroy society for ideological reasons (trying to restore capitalism). It would be in their interest to do so.
I hope I answered your question. Unless your question was "how do we prevent resistance during the revolution / transition"?
Thank you! Given the amount of downvotes, I suspected nobody was going to give me an actual answer. Glad you proved them wrong and didn't mistake my curiosity for internet trolling.
I understand your premise here, and it has a fair share of logic behind it, but how would such a thing happen?
Besides a global Bastille day, that is.
I'm very happy to see you're curious, and would love to answer your questions. Thank you for being open minded! :)
To get there, Communists think that the working class should take power, political power (that's what they call dictatorship of the proletariat) and control of the means of production. Nowadays, those are both controlled by the capitalist ruling class (directly and indirectly). If the working class controlled the means of production, that means they can operate it for their own needs instead of for profit.
You're probably thinking "well that doesn't explain how it actually happens". You're right. The exact mechanism for the working class reaching power is something I've admittedly studied a lot less, and given their Communists are yet to succeed with that, I imagine the theories there aren't complete.
The essential idea, though, is that the working class needs to become class conscious. In other words, aware of... Basically what we've been talking about. How capitalism is and how the different classes operate within the realm of capitalism. Then, the working class must organize together as a United force, and seek to overthrow the capitalist class.
In an ideal world, this would be pretty easy. Workers are the core of the economy, so workers could simply stop working or just operate their factories as they want.
In reality, things aren't as smooth. There will always be unconvinced workers. There will be police that, if you take over your workplace, they'll violently put you back in your place. This is something we've seen before in history. This is where things could get violent and bloody. The working class must be prepared to fight back.
Please let me know if this answers your question.
It answers my question, and it also answers why social democracies with free markets aren't considered by socialists and communists as actual socialism, and more of a hybrid that serves to lessen the yoke of oppression, but does nothing tangible to progress.
However, I must ask, would a lack of a nation cause a lack of organization? Would we be able to band multiple collectives in order to create, for example, a space program?
How would knowledge be distributed? Consolidated? How would Law function?
How would these issues be addressed in a Communist world?
Bob: "Guys... if we could get everyone in the whole world working together to efficiently organize labor and the allocation of resources, there would be no more poverty"
Alice: "Wow Bob, that sounds amazing! How do we make that happen?"
Bob: "Uhh... how many bullets do we have?"
There's no utopian vision advocated for by Communist philosophers. They talk exactly about how this would come through. So yes, they speak about it as an achievable and feasible thing.
And yet it's been 200 years since the 'Imminent' downfall of capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_and_claims_for_the_Second_Coming
Same energy
What if i told you that marxist theory is not some isolated idea from a random guy but the conclusion of a scientific analysis of economic history through the lens of dialectical materialism, and built on top of the works of many other people?
An easy way too look at it is that marxism is for economics what darwinism is for biology.
The best read on this is "Dialectical and Historical materialism" by Stalin.
As marx put it, the only way capitalism would survive is by keeping an infinite growth. Tech is a prime example of that phenomena, where new needs are being created out of thin air: subscriptions, software, etc... Cars, phones have begun to be necessary. That's how capitalism survives still today: growing more and more by creating new needs for the individual. Except this growth is at the expense of finite ressources, and this is where we're gonna hit a wall.
Maybe this explains we haven't seen a capitalist collapse yet. But with today's ecological concerns, it seems closer than ever