America and Communism

[Egalitarianism]

Are the conditions under which a proletarian revolution occur present in American society ?
Has Communism really "failed" most of the countries it was brought to in history or are their instances of it's successful application ?. A model Communist state.

[Blake's Baby]

No. The working class in America, as in most of the rest of the globe, is nowhere near a revolution at present. The economic crisis is continuing apace, but class consciousness doesn't appear to be at a level at which the question of humanity's future is being seriously posed.

Yes, no. It wasn't communism, communism is a worldwide classless communal society. What happened was experiments in statised economies, which were all unsuccessful. A 'model communist state' is an oxymoron, there is no 'state' in communism.

[Caj]

Are the conditions under which a proletarian revolution occur present in American society ?

The conditions are there but not the class consciousness that is indispensable.


Has Communism really "failed" most of the countries it was brought to in history or are their instances of it's successful application ?. A model Communist state.

All of the Leninist state capitalist regimes of the 20th century failed to implement socialism (i.e. workers' control).

[Mr. Natural]

The missing class consciousness to which posters refer derives from capitalism's global, systemic envelopment of the human species. We all now live. labor, and think within a global arena of capitalist values and institutions.

I don't find many current leftists sufficiently recognize the systemic nature and effects of capitalism--its increasingly effective mindfuck. Marx and Engels did; concepts such as false consciousness, reification, and the fetishism of commodities all reflect capitalism's systemic mental and psychological effects on its captured workers.

Global capitalism=global false consciousness.

[Armchair War Criminal]

Are the conditions under which a proletarian revolution occur present in American society ?No. Most Americans sit at the apex of a global empire, produce little, and consume a lot. This isn't to say that there aren't structural inequalities in American society or people who have a lot to gain from an overthrow of the system, just that not enough have more to gain than lose, and wouldn't even if they weren't drenched in liberal ideology. Of course this could change in the future.


Has Communism really "failed" most of the countries it was brought to in history or are their instances of it's successful application ?. A model Communist state.If by "failure" and "success" you mean accomplishment of our ultimate goals, no; if that were the case, we'd be living in an egalitarian utopia right now.

If you mean making a positive difference in the world: then yes, absolutely. State socialism, for all its undeniable flaws, has had an excellent track record in improving living conditions, liberating women, battling illiteracy, and so on. And note that they never claimed to be perfect societies: rather, they claimed (accurately, in most cases) that they were improving things faster than imperialist capitalism could (even if they proclaimed inaccurately that they were improving things faster than they were, as politicians always do,) and thereby acting as a vehicle to progress towards a more-or-less perfect society, just as capitalism had been a vehicle for progress. The critical failure was political; Communist Party elites almost everywhere have realized that they're better off privatizing the state to themselves, and so capitalism tends to be restored.


The missing class consciousness to which posters refer derives from capitalism's global, systemic envelopment of the human species. We all now live. labor, and think within a global arena of capitalist values and institutions.

I don't find many current leftists sufficiently recognize the systemic nature and effects of capitalism--its increasingly effective mindfuck. Marx and Engels did; concepts such as false consciousness, reification, and the fetishism of commodities all reflect capitalism's systemic mental and psychological effects on its captured workers.

Global capitalism=global false consciousness.
If this were the basic reason for American non-insurrection, then we'd see a similar lack of revolutionary activity around the world. But ordinary workers in South America, Africa, and Asia have consistently been far more insurrectionary since the end of the second world war, and even those who aren't involved in activity are at least aware that capitalism is fucking them over. And we've seen workers in Greece rapidly become revolutionary when Germany started taking away their welfare state. So I'd say it's welfare state cooptation and national prestige that secures American and West European fidelity to the system, rather than the structural production of ideology through the commodity form or whatever.

[Mr. Natural]

Armchair War Criminal, I'm not looking for a dust-up, but I do want to re-emphasize what I believe is an exceedingly important but neglected point: global capitalism's structural envelopment of the human species. This results in a mindfuck wherein workers are immersed in capitalist relations they cannot see. False consciousness rules.

I'm not trying to be dramatic but realistic when I state that I cannot see any revolutionary activity anywhere in the world. The anti-imperialist movements in Africa, Asia, and South America have run their course, and I don't see any new revolutionary activity.

The Arab Spring, Greece, etc. are popular but not revolutionary reactions against oppressive regimes created and maintained by Western imperialism. The "new" governments that have arisen are all in the imperialist camp, or soon will be.

You referred to "welfare state cooptation," which is another way of recognizing global capitalism's structural thus mental capture of humanity. Your mention of worker's allegiance to "national prestige" is representive of the false consciousness The System manufactures.

I definitely see revolutionary paths that can be created to lead out of this morass. However, the first step in this process in the West must be to realize how effectively capitalist structures have captured us in mind as well as body. What else could account for the failure of the world's workers to recognize and eliminate their profound alienation from life and society?

Workers must learn to organize in the pattern of life (communism) against the pattern of capitalism (a cancer of all life forms, human and non-human). The new sciences of organizational relations (systems-complexity science) show how this might be accomplished, but the left has conspicuously shunned them.

This science reveals the organization of life and revolution to Marxists who are currently unable to organize. Engels at Marx's funeral: "Science was to Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force."

My red-green best.

[Blake's Baby]

But it's not the job of the revolutionary minorities to organise either the working class or the revolution. It's the job of the working class to organise itself and the revolutionary minorities are part of that process of organisation.

The tragic (or comic or farcical or whatever) disarray of revolutionaries is a result of the physical, economic and ideological battering the working class has taken. Until the working class does begin to move towards challenging the system, as opposed to merely aspects thereof (and I agree that what we have seen in the last 2 years or so is not a revolutionary situation developing, though I think it has the potential to devleop into one), until the working class develops its struggles to a level where the unification of struggles becomes a possibility (and we're a long way from that) the political minorities will be marginalised and isolated. That's life, we can't will the revolution into being; and even if we could, that's not our job.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Class consciousness does exist, but it is conformism that is the real problem. Even if people live terrible lives under capitalism, they still refuse to try to change the current system because they were always taught that it is the only good and natural mode of production. They were also always taught that every attempt at overthrowing capitalism resulted in mass murder, which is an exaggeration. Only some workers and intellectuals really gain the balls to question the merits of capitalism, and they are usually demonized (especially on Fox News). People need to stop being brainwashed so that their class consciousness can come to a head. In reality, people know the concepts of "I am poor" and "I am rich", but its really about what they are willing to do with that knowledge that matters. Maybe you mean the lack of class struggle is the problem? Then I would agree: too much class unity for a revoltution to occur.

[Ostrinski]

Class consciousness evolves parallel to the intensification class struggle, and class struggle intensifies during crisis conditions. A crisis is necessary in the west before a revolutionary situation can develop.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Class consciousness evolves parallel to the intensification class struggle, and class struggle intensifies during crisis conditions. A crisis is necessary in the west before a revolutionary situation can develop.

True, so true.

[the taco-bell curve]

yo, has anyone read j. sakai's settlers? it addresses class relations in colonialist/settler countries like the US, or canada, or israel, or s. africa or what have you. you can get the pdf free online.

a good interview with him is 'when race burns class'