My theory about the final communist society

[MaximMK]

PLEASE READ IT WHOLE

After world socialism is achieved and the world is ready to have communism this is how i think it would work for the best:

The world is united in one country which has one government and if necessary regional governments for every state member of this united country. The governments role will only be to keep the world organized to take care about the police and that the laws are followed everywhere and work on projects for progress of humanity. The economy would be without any kind of cash or something similar. Only employed people would be able to "buy" stuff. There would be a global database of all employed people with the information about how many family members there are to know if they have some extra needs for their children etc. So all employed people get this card like a credit card today but instead of money on it ( because there wouldn't be any money ) it will contain the info on where the perosn is working and other needed info. So anyone that is employed and has this card can go into a shop take what he needs on the exit he would just give the card which is checked on the computer. After it is proven he is employed in the database he leaves the store with all he took. People would only take what they need like only 1 TV not 4 for every room each. Everybody would work no matter what job and all people would be employed because it doesn't matter what you do because everybody has the same potential in the stores. All is equal if employed and contributes to the society.

What do you think if you have some ideas share.


Theory goes against marx and is not communism - something i learned later.

[red cat]

Your theory goes wrong in some points. The forms of government that we are familiar with will cease to exist in communism. The society will be managed by the masses in a bottom-up manner. There will be no police separate from the masses themselves.

A minor point; perhaps it is not very wise to comment on the technology a communist society of the future will use. Cards etc will probably be obsolete by then.

[MaximMK]

Yes the technology may advance by than but i want to know if you agree with the economy part of my idea. Also there has to be at-least one institution to serve as a connection between all the people that will organize them because you can't have 6 billion people deiciding everyone has different interests. In economy and wealth all is equal but there has to be a leader so chaos is evaded and cops are part of the masses too they are also just employed people that work for living and to keep the order. There has to be a institution to do that or in time all will fail. Having absolutely no state-like institutions is anarchism. There has to be a guide, a leader in every society.

[red cat]

There will not be any leaders and professional policemen. Police and military are nothing but tools for class oppression.

[MaximMK]

Than how do you think peace and order can be preserved? I agree for the military but the police's original cause is to serve and protect there has to be someone that will investigate murders, robberies etc.

[red cat]

Than how do you think peace and order can be preserved?

Collective decision-making by the masses?


I agree for the military but the police's original cause is to serve and protect there has to be someone that will investigate murders, robberies etc.

In communism there won't be any robberies. As for murders, collective investigation by the masses with help from professionals in psychology and forensic will suffice. The police is an organized armed force meant for protecting the ruling classes from the masses.

[MaximMK]

The police does that in capitalism but in communism they will only protect the people from the ones that want to destroy the society. You don't have to call them police call them any name you like "Institution of protection" maybe. They wont be the same as today's police if they have the same name. Masses are a lot of people and getting an agreement between everyone without someone organizing them won't work. There has to be someone to do this someone that will take care that the society works that will do records of who works where someone to give the jobs. If someone gives the jobs it doesn't mean he exploitates the workers since they are all equal in getting their "shopping".

[red cat]

The police does that in capitalism but in communism they will only protect the people from the ones that want to destroy the society. You don't have to call them police call them any name you like "Institution of protection" maybe. They wont be the same as today's police if they have the same name. Masses are a lot of people and getting an agreement between everyone without someone organizing them won't work. There has to be someone to do this someone that will take care that the society works that will do records of who works where someone to give the jobs. If someone gives the jobs it doesn't mean he exploitates the workers since they are all equal in getting their "shopping".

If there is a minority that has organization superior to that of the broad masses and wields enough power to "protect" the majority, then time guarantees that they will use that power and organization to become a new ruling class. Same with someone who takes care of the society in general. When we talk of communism, a stable society with no classes, we automatically assume that the masses are organized enough to prevent any superior organization and empowerment of a minority, and the need for that to happen.

[MaximMK]

There will always be nationalists and people that will want to ruin the society there have to be state institutions to stop them. What if they rebel?

You would say the masses/people will stop them but these nazi are also part of the masses/people. And how would all be in charge and able to lead you cant held a meeting with 6 bilion people and decide what to do. Who will speak first, who will decide who to speak second etc. Lack of leadership will bring failure.

[MaximMK]

Something i found here:

Communists, unlike anarchists, view the state as merely a tool of the ruling class, which is oppressive to the majority when the capitalists are that ruling class but empowering to the majority when the workers are the ruling class. Therefore they oppose capitalist state power rather than state power in general. They believe that its utopian and unrealstic to think that society would survive outside pressure by capitalism after a revolution without a workers state. They always use marxian historical analysis and they never view industrialization as inherently oppressive. They will useually accept that some hierarchical structures are acceptable and nessessary for large scale organization so long as they're democratic and accountable to the whole.

So yes there can be state!

[Vanguard1917]

Something i found here:

Communists, unlike anarchists, view the state as merely a tool of the ruling class, which is oppressive to the majority when the capitalists are that ruling class but empowering to the majority when the workers are the ruling class. Therefore they oppose capitalist state power rather than state power in general. They believe that its utopian and unrealstic to think that society would survive outside pressure by capitalism after a revolution without a workers state. They always use marxian historical analysis and they never view industrialization as inherently oppressive. They will useually accept that some hierarchical structures are acceptable and nessessary for large scale organization so long as they're democratic and accountable to the whole.

So yes there can be state!

In Marxist theory, the state "withers away" gradually after workers take state power and as the material circumstances which gave rise to the state begin to disappear. This one big global state machine controlling society, which you seem to be proposing, is certainly not the goal of communism.

Recommended reading: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm

[red cat]

There will always be nationalists and people that will want to ruin the society there have to be state institutions to stop them. What if they rebel?

You would say the masses/people will stop them but these nazi are also part of the masses/people. And how would all be in charge and able to lead you cant held a meeting with 6 bilion people and decide what to do. Who will speak first, who will decide who to speak second etc. Lack of leadership will bring failure.

There will be no large social class base to breed nazis in communism. So these kind of saboteurs will always be an infinitesimally small minority of the masses. A meeting for the whole population is not needed to stop them. They will be detected locally by the masses much before they unite as a class and become much of a problem.


Something i found here:

Communists, unlike anarchists, view the state as merely a tool of the ruling class, which is oppressive to the majority when the capitalists are that ruling class but empowering to the majority when the workers are the ruling class. Therefore they oppose capitalist state power rather than state power in general. They believe that its utopian and unrealstic to think that society would survive outside pressure by capitalism after a revolution without a workers state. They always use marxian historical analysis and they never view industrialization as inherently oppressive. They will useually accept that some hierarchical structures are acceptable and nessessary for large scale organization so long as they're democratic and accountable to the whole.

So yes there can be state!

What you have read about is socialism, not communism. Socialism is the interphase between capitalism and communism. It is a stage where the bourgeoisie is thrown out of power, but tries to come back. Since the bourgeoisie exists as a class, the proletariat needs a state to continue class struggle against it. At the point when the bourgeoisie is completely eliminated, the state will also wither away.

[MaximMK]

Im sorry to disappoint you but my mom teaches philosophy and Marxist philosophy is part of the students program. Anarchists are the ones that deny the state fully what you said above is completely anarchism : No state, no state institutions. On the contrary the communists want a strong one world state but the government is only a supervisor in the state and organizer that helps communism to get going. Yes in time the state will become unnecessary and disappear like Marx says. The difference between socialism and communism are the cash. In communism there is no cash! Socialism makes all equal but keeps the cash until people are prepared for communism. When people are ready cash are removed from society all is free and the government disappears when its not needed any-longer. That is when majority of the people develop high consciousness and have big moral values.

I see where i am wrong but still for a short time there is a government needed to get it going but in time it will disappear.

[Paulappaul]

On the contrary the communists want a strong one world state but the government is only a supervisor in the state and organizer that helps communism to get going.

Marx - "The existence of the State is inseparable with the existence of slavery".... hmm somebody fucked up.

[MaximMK]

There has to be a state in the first phase of communism only after the peoples consciousness is developed enough they can decide for themselves and the state can be completely left in history. But only after the solidarity and good values become everyday thing for majority of the people and there will be no need of a leader and organizer. They will themselves together decide for the future expeditions on other planets lets say. Maybe about some issues that require the opinion of the people like building some laboratory, or space shuttle or something discussions can be held that all can attend. Maybe at some City Discussion Hall or something.

[Blake's Baby]

The existence of the state isn't a matter of someone's decision. The state is an organ for one class to oppress another. Classes are social relationships made manifest, and also beyond 'will' to create or abolish. Classes will only disappeart when private property disappears, the state will only disappear when classes disappear. This is socialism.

What you're advocating is a form of one-world benevolent dictatorship, of the type imagined by mid 19th-century mystical republicans. I think the main theoretician that demolished such notions was a guy called, what was it, oh yeah, Karl Marx. He wrote some books about something called 'Communism' which is a classless communal society without money or the state.

In short, if you ever established your Benevolent Dictatorship of World Niceness, quite a lot of us would be rebelling against it in the name of the world proletarian revolution from day 1.

[dernier combat]

What you have read about is socialism, not communism. Socialism is the interphase between capitalism and communism.
...implying Marx ever made a distinction between socialism and communism. The terms were used interchangeably.

[red cat]

Yes, but we follow more of Leninist definitions, which are more practical. The first phases of socialism have many similarities with capitalism while the last phase is almost indistinguishable from communism.

[ZeroNowhere]

Im sorry to disappoint you but my mom teaches philosophy and Marxist philosophy is part of the students program.There's your problem.

In any case, there's nothing particularly theoretical about any of this. The OP does not contain any theory about anything.

[dernier combat]

Yes, but we follow more of Leninist definitions, which are more practical. The first phases of socialism have many similarities with capitalism while the last phase is almost indistinguishable from communism.
So you're a revisionist then?

[red cat]

So you're a revisionist then?

Yes, of the Khrushchevite school :blushing:

[dernier combat]

Yes, of the Khrushchevite school :blushing:
I see what you did there

[Cork Socialist]

"This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism--the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population"
This points the fact that there wont be a Police force as you described it.

[MaximMK]

Ok ok i get it now but if there is no police or any state institution and the people do what they want isn't that.... anarchism?

P.S. Im new here it was just an idea i downloaded the manifesto now.

[Cork Socialist]

Again as is said in State and Revolution People will react to crime etc much in the way a society would react if they saw a woman being robbed etc they would act.

Atleast thats my understanding I could be wrong.

[red cat]

Ok ok i get it now but if there is no police or any state institution and the people do what they want isn't that.... anarchism?

The people don't do what they want. Harmful acts are prohibited by the masses themselves. Also, the final communist society is what anarchists aim at. Their main difference with (other) communists is that anarchists want communism in a single step.

[MaximMK]

Ok thanks

[dernier combat]

The people don't do what they want. Harmful acts are prohibited by the masses themselves. Also, the final communist society is what anarchists aim at. Their main difference with (other) communists is that anarchists want communism in a single step.


I assume here you are referring to anarchists and certain other "libertarian socialists". The reason why we anarchists etc. oppose the idea of a transitional "state" is because we view the state as something different to (most?) Marxists (or is it just the Leninists? I forget). The former tend to view it as a hierarchical body (with decision-making authority concentrated topmost) that maintains class rule (as in the case of any sort of minority class, e.g. the bourgeoisie), whereas the latter don't explicitly consider the hierarchical nature of the institution, viewing the state as just a body that maintains class rule. In the end, it's all just semantics within the context of the DoTP; some would call it a state and others wouldn't. We still observe a transitional period between capitalism and global communism: the period in which the working classes all across the globe overthrow the global bourgeoisie and gain power.
How exactly does your idea of a transitional period differ from ours?

[[R]evolution!]

Both Marxist and non-Marxist communists agree that communism would be stateless. So essentially yes, the end result would be anarchism.

[Reznov]

So, you said that the person will only need one TV not four for each room. Who exactly determines how much a person should have? What if that person wants to have a room for each family member in his home.

Also, as with everything in life, how can this ONE, huge bureacracy be held accountable and from being corrupted? Hell, in touch with the common people and their demands?

[MaximMK]

So, you said that the person will only need one TV not four for each room. Who exactly determines how much a person should have?

Common sense.


What if that person wants to have a room for each family member in his home.

That is ok but dude lets draw a line somewhere. What if all people on the world want a plane. Do they make 6 billion planes and airports for every man ? -.-

[Vanguard1917]

That is ok but dude lets draw a line somewhere. What if all people on the world want a plane. Do they make 6 billion planes and airports for every man ? -.-

Why should we automatically assume that people will be making irrational demands? Are humans inherently irrational?

[MaximMK]

For now they are but lets hope in the final communist society everybody will have common sense

[Vanguard1917]

For now they are but lets hope in the final communist society everybody will have common sense

Well, if humans are inherently irrational, there won't ever be a communist society.

[Sam_b]

I don't think this is particularly appropriate to Theory at all.

Moved to Learning

[MaximMK]

Well, if humans are inherently irrational, there won't ever be a communist society.

I didn't see the inherently. People don't get born irrational. Everyone is born equal ( except for persons that have mental disability ), everyone is born empty and builds up his personality later in life. Him being irrational is due to his surrounding and education. That i something that can and i believe can be fixed.

P.S. I just had to do this since its kinda connected. "All people are born atheist and poisoned by religion later."

[Zav]

I don't think that a single global state can be trusted. It would have totally unchecked power. It's a top-down system so there would be no way for the proletariat to control it.

[L.A.P.]

...implying Marx ever made a distinction between socialism and communism.

He did actually, it is clear he made the distinction between socialism and communism on his theory of historical materialism. Where socialism is the phase between capitalism and communism because socialism had a state, but surely you know that.;)

[MaximMK]

Thanks all for making things clear to me.

[ZeroNowhere]

He did actually, it is clear he made the distinction between socialism and communism on his theory of historical materialism. Where socialism is the phase between capitalism and communism because socialism had a state, but surely you know that.;)Marx didn't.

[L.A.P.]

Marx didn't.

1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

So you're saying Marx did not come up with this where it shows a distinction between socialism and communism?

[ZeroNowhere]

1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

So you're saying Marx did not come up with this where it shows a distinction between socialism and communism?Am I saying that Wikipedia is not necessarily a reliable source? Surprisingly enough, yes.

[MaximMK]

Indeed anyone can put up info there mistakes are made on purpose or intentionally. I'm just talking generally about Wikipedia not about your discussion.

[L.A.P.]

Am I saying that Wikipedia is not necessarily a reliable source? Surprisingly enough, yes.

Then that list is false?

[Blake's Baby]

Yes. Marx didn't write it. Strangely, he was dead long before wiki was invented. That is a compilation or summing up of Marx's schema, that uses Lenin's terminology for what Marx called the 'lower' and 'higher' forms of communism. Furthermore, Lenin also subsumed the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' into the phase he (but not Marx) called 'socialism'.

[Tim Finnegan]

Yes. Marx didn't write it. Strangely, he was dead long before wiki was invented. That is a compilation or summing up of Marx's schema, that uses Lenin's terminology for what Marx called the 'lower' and 'higher' forms of communism.
It's also grossly over-simplified when compared to Marx's actual schema, which didn't adopt anything like the linear Age of Empires-style progression given there. The very fact that it poses the Antique Mode of Production (i.e. "slave societies") as the necessary precursor of Feudalism- when Marx specifically notes that the relationship between the two was far more complex and that, to a certain extent, they merely happened to be chronologically subsequent in certain parts of Europe- is enough to cast a pretty heavy shadow of doubt over the accuracy of research that went into it.

[Zanthorus]

Then that list is false?

Unless you can give us a direct quotation from Marx or Engels' work which proves that they believed in a seperate 'socialist' mode of production in between capitalism and communism in which the state would continue to exist, then yes (And incidentally, if you could do that, you would be the first). Incidentally, the list also ignores the asiatic mode of production (Which Kevin Anderson argues (http://www.kevin-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/anderson-article-from-grundriss-to-capital.pdf) that Marx never dropped, contrary to popular belief) which is important in the debates over unilinearism vs multilinearism in Marx's thought.

[Blake's Baby]

I agree; I should have said it was a very rough summing up.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

In a communist world, all workers would be free laborers--not employees.

[robbo203]

Unless you can give us a direct quotation from Marx or Engels' work which proves that they believed in a seperate 'socialist' mode of production in between capitalism and communism in which the state would continue to exist, then yes (And incidentally, if you could do that, you would be the first). Incidentally, the list also ignores the asiatic mode of production (Which Kevin Anderson argues (http://www.kevin-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/anderson-article-from-grundriss-to-capital.pdf) that Marx never dropped, contrary to popular belief) which is important in the debates over unilinearism vs multilinearism in Marx's thought.

Yes and I would add that not only did Marx and Engels not ever differentiate between the terms socialism and communism to signify different modes of production but that in the aftermath of Marx and Engels , European Social Democrats (prior to Lenin) widelyif not universally used the term socialism to mean the same thing as communism

The Russian social democrats did as well. Stalin wrote in a pamplet on anarchism (1906) that socialism was a moneyless wageless stateless society. So did Bogdanoff in his A Short Course of Economic Science, which talked talked of socialism being "the highest stage of society we can conceive", in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which "there will not be the market ,buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution.".

So did Lenin too - though he was instrumental in distorting the meaning of the word socialism. This freudian slip of the tongue - an atavistic return to the old meaning of the word socialism , was apparent in an interview with Arthur Ransome in 1922, in which Lenin confessed that socialism was still some way off:

Let us proceed further. Is it possible that we are receding to something in the nature of a "feudal dictatorship"? It is utterly impossible, for although slowly, with interruptions, taking steps backward from time to time, we are still making progress along the path of state capitalism, a path that leads us forward to socialism and communism (which is the highest stage of socialism), and certainly not back to feudalism. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm)

[Lanky Wanker]

So anyone that is employed and has this card can go into a shop take what he needs on the exit he would just give the card which is checked on the computer. After it is proven he is employed in the database he leaves the store with all he took. People would only take what they need like only 1 TV not 4 for every room each.


Can I just ask what your opinion on "luxuries" are? I know this is a huge topic of its own, defining luxuries and all, but what do you think of people being able to work for more material goods? Do you think that if someone wants a huge, top range TV then that's greedy or not? It's just interesting to hear different people's views on defining luxuries and how they would work.

[MaximMK]

If he really doesn't need it than yes its a luxury. But i guess that in communist society all will have advanced technology since they will be able to get it or even make it themselves if they know how.

[Tim Finnegan]

If he really doesn't need it than yes its a luxury.
http://www.viruscomix.com/geniethoseoneof.jpg

http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/mischief.gif

[bezdomni]

There will never be a "final communist society".

Communism will only be the beginning.

[robbo203]

There will never be a "final communist society".

Communism will only be the beginning.

If by that you mean society will continue developing irrespective of the the system we put in place then that is not an unreasonable position to take up. However, in this context what is meant by final communist society seems to be Marx's "higher phase "of communism - a free access system based on voluntary labour. To say that will never happen seems unnecessarily dogmatic. We never can be completely sure eel and history never proceeds in a an ssimple straightforward arithmetical fashion . We can never be completely quite sure what lies just around the corner....

[Lanky Wanker]

If he really doesn't need it than yes its a luxury. But i guess that in communist society all will have advanced technology since they will be able to get it or even make it themselves if they know how.

I think a lot of people would say that, but you could/drink say food is a need, right? But within this "need", why would someone be allowed to have coffee when they could just have water? I heard someone use this as an example once and this kind of distorted my idea how you would define a need from a luxury. A car could be considered both need and a luxury, which is another example; all cars would be stripped to the bare minimum in order to qualify as a need and not a luxury. This is one of the things that I can never get off my mind about how a final communist society would work, seeing as needs and luxuries can be hard to define at times.

- and sorry for the extremely late reply lol