How a global communist system would work

[hllymatterson]

Tell your theories of how a global communist/socialist system would work in your opinion. The structure, the economics, education, military, nuclear weapons, religion, extreme ideologies, civil liberties, distribution of resources, rations currency or other, media, leisure, what to do with existing estates and mansions, what to do with existing estates and mansions and luxury goods, checks and balances so an elite class doesnt form, aids, cancer, healthcare, non conformists, transportation, etc. etc. etc....

Communists/socialists explain from top to bottom how this system would work, and how all the little kinks i mentioned and others will be worked out.

(I will not be commenting or expressing opinions at all, I put this up here to benefit the communists/socialists to share their thoughts and opinions on this important topic.)

[#FF0000]

the WPA has an interesting graphic that I think is an interesting flow-chart kind of thing regarding the structure of a potential communist society.

http://i.imgur.com/Q9Oz1.gif





Of course, I doubt it'd look exactly like this when applied to the real world. Who knows.

Anyway, there are a lot of options for a lot of the subjects you bring up and so we can give you a lot of speculative answers.

I will soon.

but first I'm taking a nap.

[CommunityBeliever]

That is a very broad topic, so I would like to split this up into several important components:

Type-1 technologies:
We already have the basic foundations of a type-1 information system: the internet. This should be extended with a type-1 energy system that uses technologies like nuclear fusion. Furthermore, we should be begin to colonise the rest of the Earth, namely the oceans, by using ocean ocean cities.

Advanced automation:
Once we break away from our dark-age computing systems we will be able to automate many more tasks, freeing people from manual labor.

Social collaboration
Right now, capitalists extensively use artificial scarcity and proprietary software. In our new society people should begin to collaborate on things using a model similar to the free and open source software movement.

[thefinalmarch]

We are not here to make blueprints for society.

That being said, a communist society would in fact pan out similar to #FF0000's graphic. Indeed, "workers' councils" have been the fundamental administrative organs of workers' power in the many short-lived revolutionary societies throughout history, and I have no reason to believe they wouldn't be in the future either.

[#FF0000]

Whatever form a communism takes, it's important to remember that it won't be the communists that shape it. It'll be the working class. It was the working class that formed the government in the Paris Commune, and it was the working class who formed the Soviets, without the Bolsheviks.

[Rafiq]

We aren't for building a new society. We're about destroying the current mode of production and taking class power. Afterwords I'm sure people will formulate a more efficient society than Capitalism on their own.

Remember, Capitalism was never something that was planned initially under feudalism.

[CommunityBeliever]

I agree with comrades Rafiq and thefinalmarch in the sense that our ability to describe post-capitalist society is limited as long as we are living under its constraints, so our main focus right now should be to take class power and remove those constraints. Nonetheless, we have a rudimentary understanding of the structure of post-capitalist society.

[Nox]

military, nuclear weapons, religion

There will be no need for a military or nuclear weapons in a Communist society, and religion will gradually cease to exist.

[ВАЛТЕР]

religion will gradually cease to exist.

Maybe I can reword this for you since this can be interpreted as if we are going to go on an all out anti-religious war.

Religion is dying out as it is, with advancements in technology, science, and progressive thinking. Under Communism, religion will surely exist in some forms, but it will be devoid of all political powers. Clerics, Priests, Rabbis, etc will not have the political force they have now. Communism, being the highest stage of human evolution would simply dissolve the need for religion gradually over time. Not by force, but by simple evolution.

Also, weapons of mass destruction and military would not be needed. Who will we go to war with?

[Tim Cornelis]

We aren't for building a new society. We're about destroying the current mode of production and taking class power. Afterwords I'm sure people will formulate a more efficient society than Capitalism on their own.

How naive. If the workers take power of the factories and society they will surely implement market socialism because they will simply form worker cooperatives but will not eliminate money. You need to have a broad plan (not a blueprint) and multiple means to eliminate money and replace it with planned socialism.


Remember, Capitalism was never something that was planned initially under feudalism.

But neither were there people running around in feudal times actively advocating capitalism. If you're going to advocate something you need to be able to imagine how it might work.

[Dunk]

But neither were there people running around in feudal times actively advocating capitalism.

I'm not so sure this is accurate. I mean, it's an anachronism to suggest there are people during that period of transition that were talking about capitalism, but as the bourgeoisie came to power and began to displace the aristocracy, there were definitely people who "advocated" capitalism, in a sense. Plenty of bouregois revolutions and reformations leading up to, during, and following the industrial revolution.

[Rodrigo]

No one knows how it would be. Imagination about an uncertain, far and foggy future is useless.

[aristos]

This reluctance on the left to actually make plans for the future is really disparaging.
One doesn't start building a house without figuring out how it should look and work beforehand.

[Rafiq]

But neither were there people running around in feudal times actively advocating capitalism. If you're going to advocate something you need to be able to imagine how it might work.


then maybe one of the problems of the left is this 'advocating' of future societies.

[Rafiq]

How naive. If the workers take power of the factories and society they will surely implement market socialism because they will simply form worker cooperatives but will not eliminate money. You need to have a broad plan (not a blueprint) and multiple means to eliminate money and replace it with planned socialism.


Oh, I didn't know you were a fortune teller, either. You're calling me naive when you are the one implicitly advocating building blueprints for a future society we have fuck all to do with.

I mean this is basic Utopianism of the highest degree. I know I'm notorious for labeling people as Idealist but such assertions are nothing other than Idealist.

People will formulate a more efficient mode of production while they adjust themselves to a different type of Organization we have yet to discover.

I can see no distinction between a "Broad plan" and a blueprint. A revolution cannot be planned, it just happens. Capitalism was not planned nor was Feudalism.

It's important not to put yourself in this position as if you have the whole world in your two hands. What we should be doing is defending our class interests and striking the class enemy where it hurts.

[aristos]

This is such a cop-out.

I am sure you don't approach your personal everyday matters in such a hap-hazardous way.
But of course building a new society is such a trivial matter compared to say... going to the grocery store with a specific forethought of what to buy.

[Manic Impressive]

No one knows how it would be. Imagination about an uncertain, far and foggy future is useless.
No not really, we can use historical materialism to see how changes have affected society in the past and recognize the antagonisms created under class society and logically suppose what would happen if they were removed. We can than combine the two to formulate opinions on how a classless society would operate.

[Revolution starts with U]

How naive. If the workers take power of the factories and society they will surely implement market socialism because they will simply form worker cooperatives but will not eliminate money. You need to have a broad plan (not a blueprint) and multiple means to eliminate money and replace it with planned socialism.

You simply cannot eliminate currency until you have eliminated (artificial) scarcity. I imagine there will be a fair amount of market socialism in the transitional stage. Keep in mind that the capitalist system has been the most progressive system known to mankind (except primitive communism, depending on how you define progressive).
I look at it this way:
Socialism is what we advocate for; worker control of the means of production. It is why we pick up arms to defend ourselves against bourgie aggression. To end the oppression of private property we foster the revolutionary class consciousness of the laborer... in order to implement socialism; worker control of the means of production. What it will look like is a society of free producers working for themselves, on what they want to work on, how they want to work it, free from the oligarchical power-mongering of the capitalist.
Communism will develop naturally as scarcity become less and less relevant; a moneyless marketless society of "from each to each." It will be the people themselves that build communism out of the surplus created by the socialist mode of production. What it will look like, we do not know.

Im glad to see you came back Holly :D I know sometimes the members of this board can be a little harsh. But it's their passion. And passions sometimes get in the way, and rightly so, of civility. :cool:

[Revolution starts with U]

Tell your theories of how a global communist/socialist system would work in your opinion. The structure, the economics, education, military, nuclear weapons, religion, extreme ideologies, civil liberties, distribution of resources, rations currency or other, media, leisure, what to do with existing estates and mansions, what to do with existing estates and mansions and luxury goods, checks and balances so an elite class doesnt form, aids, cancer, healthcare, non conformists, transportation, etc. etc. etc....

Communists/socialists explain from top to bottom how this system would work, and how all the little kinks i mentioned and others will be worked out.

(I will not be commenting or expressing opinions at all, I put this up here to benefit the communists/socialists to share their thoughts and opinions on this important topic.)

I imagine it will be a somewhat gradual process of reactions to spikes in revolutionary class consciousness and actions. The capitalist mode will continue to expand across the planet. But here and there revolutions will happen, and individual cultures will attempt to implement their own socialism. They will see great initital successes.
Because this threatens the capitalist position, these socialist cultures will face severe retalliation. They will be invaded. Meanwhile the capitalists will buy off their laborers, in order to stave off revolutions in their own cultures, with socialist-light economic programs; welfare, co-determination, labor rights, etc.
Other countries, not so steeped in maintining the imperialist structure of capitalism (merely just benefiting from it) will implement so-called "mixed" economies of both capitalist and socialist ideals. The bourgiousie will fight this too, but mostly with propaganda, as they cannot reasonably deny the successes of the system to the people living under it, and as such could not justify their invasion.
As more and more cultures are exposed to revolutionary activity, the capitalist world system will start to look more and more socialist. But it will not be stopped, short of world-wide economic collapse. The workers will be too powerful. Eventually the capitalists will institute world government, in order to grab a few more years/decades of capitalist domination. But, in their haste they will not notice that this self-interested action will give the workers a world-wide tool for its own emancipation.
The struggle, the inherint contradiction of capitalism, will continue, as it must. One will find it very difficult to even find a capitalist in the traditional way we define it now. Much as there are very few self-proprietorships in the major markets now, you will see less and less corporations in the traditional sense in the future. Co-ops will become, because of their resilliency to recession/depression, a more dominant business structure.
Until one day, an individual looks around to realize there are no classes, the surplus makes the economy freely accesible to all, and the state is so irrelevant as to not exist. :thumbup:

This is all true, because I drank some goat blood and meditated in a smoky incense filled room and some "guy" who called himself "man shepard" told me all about it. :cool:

[Nox]

Maybe I can reword this for you since this can be interpreted as if we are going to go on an all out anti-religious war.

Religion is dying out as it is, with advancements in technology, science, and progressive thinking. Under Communism, religion will surely exist in some forms, but it will be devoid of all political powers. Clerics, Priests, Rabbis, etc will not have the political force they have now. Communism, being the highest stage of human evolution would simply dissolve the need for religion gradually over time. Not by force, but by simple evolution.

That's exactly how I meant it.

As education improves, science improves and technology improves, religion will gradually 'cease to exist' :)


Also, weapons of mass destruction and military would not be needed. Who will we go to war with?

That's my point.

[Judicator]

http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/dof/sovunion/images/Stalin/gulag.jpg

[Rooster]

How naive. If the workers take power of the factories and society they will surely implement market socialism because they will simply form worker cooperatives but will not eliminate money.

How so? Wouldn't money collapse because it's no longer being centrally managed?