21st Century Communism

[Thetwoterrors]

I was wondering if there are any great theorists out there who have really good ideas about how communism might work in the 21st century. I'm not looking for the usual boring step-by-step plan that rightist critics demand from anyone who talks about a new social order; I am just merely looking for a great development of an alternative communist vision.

Also, I'm interested if there are any revolutionary struggles/situations in the world today which could develop into a socialist or communist revolution. I haven't heard much on that front outside the struggle in india (which is important and could potentially be a game changer in 21st century politics), I was just wondering if there was anything really cool going on elsewhere.

On a sidenote, does anyone else think that recent technological developments and social conditions could really change how communism manifests itself in the future?

[Mr. Natural]

Communism means "scientifically" producing in community for community. Life is composed of and produced by living systems--cells to ecosystem to people--and these are all forms of community. Check yourself out. You exist in internal and external community.

Humans are natural beings currently living unnaturally. Our communities and the communities of life are all being attacked by the cancer of community: capitalism.

The communities of life have a universal pattern of organization that has existed since organic molecules autocatalyzed into a primitive living system some 4 billion years ago. The astoundingly diverse parade of life that has eventuated since has all been a riff on the emergent birth of this pattern of organization of matter.

The theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, has created a conceptual triangle that models life's (thus communism's) universal pattern of organization, making it available to we who must organize our lives in life's pattern. This pattern of organization is remarkably similar to the overall pattern and process of the Marxist materialist dialectic.

There is a pattern of organization by which matter comes to life in community on Earth. People are matter and must live in community, and now we must learn to scientifically, dialectically create community.

Anarchist/socialist/communist revolution, anyone? Capra's triangle makes this possible.

My red-green, communal best.

[seventeethdecember2016]

On a sidenote, does anyone else think that recent technological developments and social conditions could really change how communism manifests itself in the future?
I believe in the future a Computerized government will be in charge, completely replacing the Bureaucracy and hierarchy, will work as a Vanguard for the Proletariat. Of course by then labor and exploitation would have been abolished.


Also, I'm interested if there are any revolutionary struggles/situations in the world today which could develop into a socialist or communist revolution. I haven't heard much on that front outside the struggle in india (which is important and could potentially be a game changer in 21st century politics), I was just wondering if there was anything really cool going on elsewhere.
Nepal pretty much became Maoist in 2008.
The People's Mujahedin of Iran could take over Iran one day.
The Communists gained the Presidency in Cyprus in 2008.
Greece could eventually have a Socialist Revolution.
The PKK have warned Turkey that if it attacks Syria they will start a revolt in Kurdistan.
These Arab Spring Protests have raised influence for Socialist and Communist parties.

[Tim Cornelis]

There is no need for a "new communism" as there was no "old communism". Arguably, we need a new approach to how we reach communism, but that's where tendencies are for.


[are] there are any revolutionary struggles/situations in the world today which could develop into a socialist or communist revolution.

Not really. Of course we have the Naxalites as you mentioned.
Havee3333333 named a few situations, but none of those have an actual communist potential.


Nepal pretty much became Maoist in 2008.

Turned out to be a bourgeois-republican revolution.


The People's Mujahedin of Iran could take over Iran one day.

???


The Communists gained the Presidency in Cyprus in 2008.

Is more like a social capitalist in practice--that is, has no communist potential.


Greece could eventually have a Socialist Revolution.

Still far away though.


The PKK have warned Turkey that if it attacks Syria they will start a revolt in Kurdistan.

PKK is national liberationist and has abandoned Marxism-Leninism.


These Arab Spring Protests have raised influence for Socialist and Communist parties.

Only very moderately. Maybe you have some information on how Communist Parties are doing.

A Hoxhaist party won a few seats in Tunisian parliament.

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I would say that party politics is archaic and a remnant of twentieth century communism, whereas social movements are the current embodiment of twenty-first century anticapitalism.

We have the Abahlali baseMjondolo; Landless People's Movement; Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in South Africa.
We have Homeless Workers' Movement and Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil.
And we have similar social movements in India and Mexico.

And also the Zapatistas (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico. In neighbouring Oaxaca there was the popular assembly of the peoples of Oaxaca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Assembly_of_the_Peoples_of_Oaxaca) named after an anarchist. And there is another peasant-guerrilla movement active called Popular Revolutionary Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Revolutionary_Army) operating in Guerrero.

These movements usually have large popular support. The Brazilian movements have up to 2 million members and the Abahlali baseMondjolo have tens of thousands of members in Kwazulu Natal.

The problem with these social movements are that they are usually one-sided and do not have an overall programme, despite being anticapitalist. They should unite under a banner of one socialist organisation.

EDIT: unite under the banner of an extra-parliamentary organisation I should add. Or else they will be co-opted.

↓ The book mentioned by Anti-capitalist "Towards a New Manifesto" can be read for free here (or downloaded if you haven't used it before--you get like 2 or 3 free downloads).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/63098157/towards-a-new-manifesto

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I haven't read this book yet, but I heard this book is supposed to be really good for what you are asking for. Check it out here. (http://www.amazon.com/Towards-New-Manifesto-Theodor-Adorno/dp/1844678199/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6)

David Harvey has put out some great books recently on neo-liberalism and capitalism.

A book that isn't so recent, but that I have found very engaging and informative would be Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0872863298/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=16043193219&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2190315391469660019&hvpone=10.91&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&ref=pd_sl_4ef0cxqg58_e) I don't agree with everything in it, but it is really good and brings up interesting points.

[Thetwoterrors]

I actually read Blackshirts and Reds recently Anti-Capitalist, and I found it to be very straight-forward book which deconstructs many of the myths about 20th century socialism. I like Parenti's term "actually existing socialism" to describe the socialist states of the 20th century, 'state-capitalism' leaves a bad taste in my mouth (since all capitalisms need a state) and I feel like it denigrates the amazing achievements of the peoples revolutions of the 20th century. State Capitalism also implies that the social orders of socialist states were not a threat to the imperialist nations; I think this is false, ruling classes of the imperial nations spent trillions of dollars and murdered millions of people to destroy these revolutions and these states, I don't think western ruling elites felt the same way about the "state capitalism" of these socialist states as leftist critics.

I was thinking that Havee333333, modern computer technology makes a planned democratic industrial economy much more feasible than it was in the 20th century. And far from excluding poor underdeveloped nations, the worldwide proliferation of modern cell-phone technology allows third world urban poor and rural poor to play a broader, more participatory role in revolution and democratic self-management.

We already have a planned economy in my opinion, government infrastructure planning and the legal and geographical space that is opened up to industry by the capitalist state, allows the bourgeoisie to organize the global economy around their needs.You can even view the extreme dominance of finance capital over the global economy and the technologies used to keep it moving as a sort of bourgeois planned economy gone mad.