Having a detailed vision of communism

[Lokomotive293]

I notice that a lot of the threads in the learning section are questions about details of a future communist society.

Now, I always have a problem when trying to answer these questions, which is simply: I don't know. I can tell you what the root of the problems of capitalism is, and therefore, what a socialist society needs to be based on. I can tell you how certain issues have been resolved historically in actually existing socialist societies. But I don't know what communist society will look like in what not unlikely is still a 1000 years from now. There are too many unknown variables in the equation, and I don't like telling fairy tales.

What is your opinion on that matter?

[Snard]

I agree wholeheartedly. It seems like this site is a place for people to come to, then ask the veterans essentially: "So what's going to happen? Is everything going to be totally awesome? What are we going to do? You must be an expert since you have a few thousand posts and semi-amazing rep, so what's the plan, man?" I assume you are referring to this kind of behavior, unless I've interpreted you incorrectly.

But yes, like I said - I agree. Reaching the point where society is near-perfect with only minuscule problems is and will forever be one of the hardest fucking things anyone can hope to achieve. Next to floating into the sky and meeting god without being intoxicated or suffering from any hallucinatory mental illness(es). It is not a definite thing, therefore it cannot have a definite answer.

[CyM]

The only thing we can do is point out the first steps. The rest must be achieved by our children and grand children. Our task is to take power and the means of production from the hands of the bourgeoisie and concentrate it in the hands of the working class, beginning to plan the economy rationally and democratically on a world scale.

This is only the first steps. The abolition of money, the withering away of the state, the abolition of family, these are the tasks that can only be accomplished once an economy of superabundance is established, and a generation knowing nothing of want since birth has taken society in hand.

How those things will happen, when, what methods that generation will use to achieve them, we cannot know. We know nothing but capitalism, have been raised with its habits of mind and psychology.

Can you imagine a whole generation which has never seen poverty, and never seen classes? That generation will be as alien to us as a modern capitalist is to an ancient slave.

We cannot know. This is why Marx never set out blueprints, only going so far as extrapolating logically from the real experience of the living working class movement. Before the Paris Commune, he never even tried to explain how the dictatorship of the working class would look, but afterwards used it to come to the conclusion that the workers can not simply take control of the ready-made state and use it to its own ends. It would have to demolish it and organize its own power from scratch.

This is the difference between scientific socialism and utopian socialism. We start from what is and see what we can do with it, not what could be in an ideal universe that does not exist and then try to fit reality into it.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, I think CyM's post above is pretty good . . .

That said, I think there is a real place for the utopian imagination, and utopian fiction. I think The Dispossessed by Ursala K. Le Guin and bolo'bolo by P.M. are both fantastic examples - terrible blueprints, but fantastic sources of inspiration. I also picked these two because they provide interesting contrasts: Le Guin's "utopia" is ambiguous - it sets out to ask, "Is this worth it, despite the hardships? Will the results of striving for a goal that is impossible to achieve be sufficient?" P.M., on the other hand, provides a raucous fantasy, a psychedelic programme for global transformation that is both impossible to take seriously, and yet, in its attention to strange details, impossible not to.

I think we still need this sort of thing - not promises, but possibilities; not delusions, but dreams. The struggle for survival against capitalism could go on until the earth is scorched and lifeless. Consequently, I think we need to talk, sometimes, about life beyond capitalism, if nothing else, as a way of inoculating ourselves against the temptation to try and dictate it.

[ckaihatsu]

---





I respectfully have *minor* differences with comrades on this point of whether a society of proletarian dictatorship can be "outlined" in advance, or not.

While employing potential frameworks for the sake of illustration and explanation can be readily dismissed as 'abstract' -- and they are -- the purpose is *not* one of *prediction*, but rather for a material-based, reasoning-based *summation* of what would be *possible*, given consistent material societal realities that would continue to exist into the indefinite future. It may be thought-of as a 'futurist political anthropology', if you like, for lack of a better term.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I think we can look at what communism will look like.
However, the problem is when we give detailed blueprints of communism. We can draw conclusions of what communism will be like from looking at capitalism. We can look at forms of decision-making that are impossible in today's class-society but would be possible in a classless-society.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I've always gone by the old saying that predicting the future is a mug's game. I suppose we know in broad strokes what the features of a socialist society would be (classless society, absence of wage labour etcetera) but we won't know the details until we get there.

I like to draw comparison to a few books I have. My dad - and his dad - as boys, were interested in science and excited about the future. As such, I have some books from the 1930's and 1960's (predominantly) predicting the future. They're fun to read (and some of them have very beautiful and detailed drawings of what future buildings and technologies might look like) but it's amazing how wrong they got things sometimes. Their views of the future were coloured by the world they lived in - the future-ologists of the thirties were not very concerned with the development of computing technology - but they were absolutely wild about aeroplanes and motorways. In the sixties, they largely didn't see the internet coming - they saw us taking intercontinental passenger rockets and living in orbital habitats.

They got some things right - one thing I'll always remember is reading a 1967 book about "The future of space" in around 1999 and realising that the author had quite accurately predicted the ISS (his bet was the first module launching in 1995, which isn't bad at all (and I later realised that his prediction of a smaller long-term habitat in the mid eighties was right - remember Mir?)) but like I said, we view the future (and the past, and don't I know it) through the lenses of the present.

If it's hard to predict where something as specific as rocket engines were going over the next thirty years (Ion thrusters were not on the menu in 1967) it's probably impossible to predict what a society so fundamentally different from ours is going to be like over the next few generations. It's fun to think about though.

[ckaihatsu]

There's also the saying that...





If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. - Lewis Carroll

http://philosiblog.com/2011/07/13/if-you-dont-know-where-youre-going/


From the standpoint of politics we don't need to either *predict* future technologies or put forth a detailed *blueprint* of what would be best -- what we *can* do is to take known certainties about society, forward into a revolutionary social context and then posit some *parameters* about such a society.

I've developed a framework for this, simply based on the postulate that a future revolutionary / post-revolution society will be able to produce a *surplus* (this is the definition of 'civilization'). The question then becomes how does society *dispose* of its surplus -- ? There are only two possibilities: Either it is consumed, as for pleasure, or else it is collectivized to some degree, as by administration (or privatized by management, under capitalism).


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://s6.postimage.org/nwiupxn8t/2526684770046342459_Rh_JMHF_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/nwiupxn8t/)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

http://s6.postimage.org/wvo45xzhp/2_G_U_T_S_U_C_Simplified.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/wvo45xzhp/)

[reb]

First, let me just say that I can not seriously believe this thread.


I notice that a lot of the threads in the learning section are questions about details of a future communist society.

Now, I always have a problem when trying to answer these questions, which is simply: I don't know. I can tell you what the root of the problems of capitalism is, and therefore, what a socialist society needs to be based on. I can tell you how certain issues have been resolved historically in actually existing socialist societies. But I don't know what communist society will look like in what not unlikely is still a 1000 years from now. There are too many unknown variables in the equation, and I don't like telling fairy tales.

What is your opinion on that matter?

You obviously do not know what the root of the problems of capitalism are if you think that communism will take 1000 years of development in this imaginary, but I can only presume you mean, stalinist "socialism". Some transitional stage if it takes that long, longer than the whole development of capitalism. And you're even more deluded if you think that "actually existing socialist societies" solved any capitalist issues. Here's a clue as to why they didn't; THEY DONT EXIST ANYMORE. If you think that it takes such a long time to develop into communism and these places dissolved in 80 years, and I again assume that you think they ceased being "socialist" after the death of one man, then how do you hope to preserve your idealist utopia until your "transition" to communism? You seem to be presenting more evolutionary, rather than revolutionary solutions which is quite becoming to the, and I again I presume, the stalinist social democrat in you.


The only thing we can do is point out the first steps. The rest must be achieved by our children and grand children. Our task is to take power and the means of production from the hands of the bourgeoisie and concentrate it in the hands of the working class, beginning to plan the economy rationally and democratically on a world scale.

People have been pointing out the "first steps" for over a hundred years. But I digress...


This is only the first steps. The abolition of money, the withering away of the state, the abolition of family, these are the tasks that can only be accomplished once an economy of superabundance is established, and a generation knowing nothing of want since birth has taken society in hand.

How those things will happen, when, what methods that generation will use to achieve them, we cannot know. We know nothing but capitalism, have been raised with its habits of mind and psychology.

This stageist claptrap is unbecoming of a marxist. Call me crazy, but I do not think any point in Marx's time could have been called superabundant. Not only that, it makes illogical sense in marxian thinking. Or any thinking. If the proletariat was raised to a position of dominance then how or why would it continue the state of affairs that bore it? Did Spartacus continue enforcing Roman social relations in his troop? Did the bourgeoisie continue operating within the old social structures of Europe? This is ridiculous elitist talk where only the preservers of correct thinking can be in charge and the proletariat have to be trained. It removes the proletariat from it's essential position in history and also every single social relation in capital from each other into discrete units.


We cannot know. This is why Marx never set out blueprints, only going so far as extrapolating logically from the real experience of the living working class movement. Before the Paris Commune, he never even tried to explain how the dictatorship of the working class would look, but afterwards used it to come to the conclusion that the workers can not simply take control of the ready-made state and use it to its own ends. It would have to demolish it and organize its own power from scratch.

The reason he didn't set out blue prints as in "this is how we are going to distribute shoes and make them in communism" is because he didn't need to. The organization and material reality of communist society presents itself logically within capitalist production. It comes out of very antagonisms of society itself!


This is the difference between scientific socialism and utopian socialism. We start from what is and see what we can do with it, not what could be in an ideal universe that does not exist and then try to fit reality into it.

That is not what differentiates utopian socialism from marxian socialism. the difference lies in the trying to create a socialism that incorporates the capitalist mode of production, not seeing the underlying issues that connect them to each other. In short, it has no conception of the proletariat as the vehicle of the communist revolution.

[Lokomotive293]

First, I don't understand how this


The organization and material reality of communist society presents itself logically within capitalist production. It comes out of very antagonisms of society itself!

contradicts the point you quoted. Or what I said in the OP.

Second:

I will not answer to any name-calling, and I will not let this thread become a discussion about the Soviet Union, or so-called "Stalinism".

[argeiphontes]

...telling fairy tales.

What is your opinion on that matter?

My opinion on the matter is that far leftism is a quasi-religion. Like "heaven", the goal is completely indeterminate, so there is nothing positive to justify any kind of action, and everybody can focus on refining the critique of capitalism. Also, being indeterminate allows it to encompass everybody's dreams of a better future so nothing is left out. It's a land of milk and honey where everybody is happy. The only thing that's missing is eternal life, but I suppose there are people who have a lot of hubris about technology, so that's not out of the question either. In any case, the properties of a future society are only sketched out based on them being not-capitalism.

If society were really being used as a starting point to see what possibilities develop, then why doesn't anybody support market socialism, which is completely realistic? Instead, everybody insists on the utopian dream of eliminating commerce, which has been with us as long as history and predates capitalism. It's all or nothing, so we are left with nothing.

So, yes, it is indeed a question of being realistic. It seems to me that claiming that the people with plans, or who are trying to articulate them, are the utopian ones is a complete reversal of any meaning of "utopian".

You can't expect anybody to act on the basis of a critique alone. Smash capitalism, but what's the alternative? Smash the state, but how are you going to avoid primitive anarchy? Those things really exist and have the force of objectivity about them, as opposed to saying "Uh, I dunno. Let's just smash it and see." Nobody is going to struggle for that, and rightly so, because there is nothing to struggle for, not merely against.

[argeiphontes]

First, I don't understand how this



The organization and material reality of communist society presents itself logically within capitalist production. It comes out of very antagonisms of society itself!
contradicts the point you quoted. Or what I said in the OP.


I believe that's a dialectical materialist thing to say, so it's some real Hegelian "woo." For some reason, that train of thought has no meta understanding of itself, so for example nobody thinks that maybe there's a socialism that's a dialectical solution somewhere between capitalism and communism. (It's not subject to its own logic.)

edit: To clarify, if dialectical materialism is true, then why isn't communism just the antithesis of capitalism? (That's exactly how it's formulated, if you look at the posts above.) In that case, the real solution would be a dialectical synthesis between capitalism (thesis) and communism (antithesis).

[ckaihatsu]

My opinion on the matter is that far leftism is a quasi-religion. Like "heaven", the goal is completely indeterminate,





[T]he 'higher stage' of communism, while desirable, sounds increasingly to me like a *religious* concept -- of heaven, the hereafter, etc. It doesn't help either us as revolutionaries or the cause of communism to adopt an abstract concept that also sounds "post-materialist" and makes us shut off our thinking about such a society *in* a realistic, materialist context.

The matter of material accounting -- with labor credits or whatever -- will remain a pressing question, along with the issue of luxury goods, and it would be better to be as decisive as possible on these, earlier rather than later.

We shouldn't be satisfied to pretend that there could be a point of historical *stasis* sometime in the future, post-revolution. With a fully liberated technological drive we would undoubtedly see a *faster* pace of developments, which would only *beg* the question of who-gets-what-and-when.





so there is nothing positive to justify any kind of action, and everybody can focus on refining the critique of capitalism. Also, being indeterminate allows it to encompass everybody's dreams of a better future so nothing is left out. It's a land of milk and honey where everybody is happy. The only thing that's missing is eternal life, but I suppose there are people who have a lot of hubris about technology, so that's not out of the question either. In any case, the properties of a future society are only sketched out based on them being not-capitalism.





We could call Marxism a 'societal paradigm', and also call religious thought a 'societal paradigm' -- the difference is that religion has already been historically manifested, whereas Marxism has not.

It's easy to see why people would accuse Marxism of being a religion, because it's paradigmatic, but it *is* scientific in its method and can also develop its repertoire by analyzing continuously unfolding world events.

Additionally, Marxism is *integrative* and *comprehensive*, and cuts against the prevailing *reductionistic* approach contained in most scientific perspectives.

Anything that's so paradigmatic, or all-encompassing, can be difficult to get a grasp on, since it can be unwieldy in its totality. Acceptance of a paradigm's premise -- like the class struggle -- gives rise to far-flung implications -- like the *need* for active class struggle -- that may not always be so appealing.

[...]

Marxism is *still* a unified form of knowledge, and speaks to the productive process no matter what shape it takes, *independently* of the knowledge base involved.





If society were really being used as a starting point to see what possibilities develop, then why doesn't anybody support market socialism, which is completely realistic?


Because 'market'-anything only begs the question of why the world isn't simply producing collectively, by the workers, for direct distribution (no exchanges).





Instead, everybody insists on the utopian dream of eliminating commerce, which has been with us as long as history and predates capitalism. It's all or nothing, so we are left with nothing.


Commerce, at this point in human history, is simply dead-weight -- we could do far better.





So, yes, it is indeed a question of being realistic. It seems to me that claiming that the people with plans, or who are trying to articulate them, are the utopian ones is a complete reversal of any meaning of "utopian".

You can't expect anybody to act on the basis of a critique alone.


People often have their own, personal, reasons for being revolutionary and in struggle.





Smash capitalism, but what's the alternative? Smash the state, but how are you going to avoid primitive anarchy?


By organizing on the basis of mass workers power, in a collectively intentional way, for something consciously better.





Those things really exist and have the force of objectivity about them, as opposed to saying "Uh, I dunno. Let's just smash it and see." Nobody is going to struggle for that, and rightly so, because there is nothing to struggle for, not merely against.


(See post #8.)





[...]

edit: To clarify, if dialectical materialism is true, then why isn't communism just the antithesis of capitalism? (That's exactly how it's formulated, if you look at the posts above.) In that case, the real solution would be a dialectical synthesis between capitalism (thesis) and communism (antithesis).


By dialectics, communism ('synthesis') would come into being from the *negation* ('antithesis') of capitalism ('thesis').

[argeiphontes]

Commerce, at this point in human history, is simply dead-weight -- we could do far better.


Commerce is what allows people to not have to personally contribute to every project that produces what they need. Even labor credits or a barter system are a form of commerce, as I see it. (I wasn't referring to organized capital markets or anything like that, those are institutions and hence should be subject to social control.)



By organizing on the basis of mass workers power, in a collectively intentional way, for something consciously better.


Yeah, but what? That's why I posted the ParEcon thread.



By dialectics, communism ('synthesis') would come into being from the *negation* ('antithesis') of capitalism ('thesis').


Doesn't the negation have to be a concrete socioeconomic stage of development like capitalism, because diamat takes place in material reality? I don't understand why communism isn't the negation of capitalism, especially since that's the terms in which it's defined.

Is the revolution itself the negation of capitalism? In that case, the activity of negation (destroying something, e.g.) is being substituted for the concrete negation itself.

(edit: In fact, in Schweickart's critique of ParEcon, he says something similar, that ParEcon creators are forgetting to think dialectically.)

(It just seems that way to me. I don't really care for diamat or Hegelian "logic" though it is fun to read about and consider as a metaphor. If anything, I think dialectical idealism could have some truth to it (because people are able to consciously react against the past via movements or politics), but that's it.)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Just one point of disagreement with CyM's post that I didn't note in my earlier comment: I don't think we need to stake communism on an economy of "superabundance". I think the preconditions for communism are technological not in a quantitative sense, but a qualitative one.


[Extended post - wrapped in spoiler tags for sake of formatting]My opinion on the matter is that far leftism is a quasi-religion. Like "heaven", the goal is completely indeterminate, so there is nothing positive to justify any kind of action, and everybody can focus on refining the critique of capitalism. Also, being indeterminate allows it to encompass everybody's dreams of a better future so nothing is left out. It's a land of milk and honey where everybody is happy. The only thing that's missing is eternal life, but I suppose there are people who have a lot of hubris about technology, so that's not out of the question either. In any case, the properties of a future society are only sketched out based on them being not-capitalism.

If society were really being used as a starting point to see what possibilities develop, then why doesn't anybody support market socialism, which is completely realistic? Instead, everybody insists on the utopian dream of eliminating commerce, which has been with us as long as history and predates capitalism. It's all or nothing, so we are left with nothing.

So, yes, it is indeed a question of being realistic. It seems to me that claiming that the people with plans, or who are trying to articulate them, are the utopian ones is a complete reversal of any meaning of "utopian".

You can't expect anybody to act on the basis of a critique alone. Smash capitalism, but what's the alternative? Smash the state, but how are you going to avoid primitive anarchy? Those things really exist and have the force of objectivity about them, as opposed to saying "Uh, I dunno. Let's just smash it and see." Nobody is going to struggle for that, and rightly so, because there is nothing to struggle for, not merely against.

The thing is, communism is fundamentally a negative project in relation to capitalism. This is hardly without historical precedent - the contractions that gave rise to capitalism out of feudalism didn't present themselves as a positive plan, but rather, emerged organically out of struggles.

Similarly, communism is the means by which capitalism will be overthrown: positing what a "future" communist society might look like misses the point, since what we are actually attempting to describe is the character of the rupture with what now exists (the abolition of money, the destruction of the family, the end of effective sovereignty of states, etc.). Just as it would have been silly to demand a schematic of nascent capitalist society in 1500, it's silly to demand an explanation of communism now.

As I said above, we can posit imaginative utopias, and we can present concrete proposals for realizing aspects of those utopias as part of the struggle against capital. For example, if we imagine a future without private ownership, we can suggest that that the first step is expropriating private property.

That there is a certain "leap of faith" between the two is just the existential reality of life. One can either leap, or go crawl into a hole and die quietly of ennui.

[argeiphontes]

The thing is, communism is fundamentally a negative project in relation to capitalism.


Exactly. That's why it's free of any positive substance. I see this as a weakness.



This is hardly without historical precedent - the contractions that gave rise to capitalism out of feudalism didn't present themselves as a positive plan, but rather, emerged organically out of struggles.
Those changes weren't subject to any kind of conscious planning but arose organically. The way I see it, I'd rather not wait around for the next social stage to develop. Otherwise, communism is just a nice academic theory about a prediction for the future and not a prescription for injecting change into the socioeconomic system.



Similarly, communism is the means by which capitalism will be overthrown: positing what a "future" communist society might look like misses the point, since what we are actually attempting to describe is the character of the rupture with what now exists (the abolition of money, the destruction of the family, the end of effective sovereignty of states, etc.).
Well, then there is no vision for the future except a negative one.



Just as it would have been silly to demand a schematic of nascent capitalist society in 1500, it's silly to demand an explanation of communism now.
Actually, it seems to me that that nascent society existed in the town life and commerce of the burghers. Also, as you said it was an organic development and hence required no schematic.



As I said above, we can posit imaginative utopias
Just redefining them as imaginative utopias doesn't really change my mind. I can say that the corporate structure was at first an imaginative utopia, but that doesn't mean that lawyers and politicians didn't have a concrete plan for how it would limit liability. And there it is, lording over all of us.

How does a "leap of faith" square with historical materialism? (edit: or the human psychology of survival and resource acquisition. Nobody really expects Jesus to provide their daily bread.) I don't quite understand.

[ckaihatsu]

Commerce is what allows people to not have to personally contribute to every project that produces what they need.


Oh, I see -- you're using 'commerce' to mean 'material planning over labor activity'.





Even labor credits or a barter system are a form of commerce, as I see it. (I wasn't referring to organized capital markets or anything like that, those are institutions and hence should be subject to social control.)


I'll argue the point that my model's circulating labor credits are a kind of commerce, since there's no *exchange value* embodied in labor credits. One would not be able to use them separately from one's own actual (past) labor completed, and one could not use them like money, to purchase any tangible goods. There's not much left there that resembles 'commerce'.





By organizing on the basis of mass workers power, in a collectively intentional way, for something consciously better.





Yeah, but what? That's why I posted the ParEcon thread.


Well, again, I'll just refer to my model -- it's as detailed as I think anyone can get without having the actual conditions for revolution and beyond.





By dialectics, communism ('synthesis') would come into being from the *negation* ('antithesis') of capitalism ('thesis').





Doesn't the negation have to be a concrete socioeconomic stage of development like capitalism, because diamat takes place in material reality?


I would tend to say that worldwide revolutionary workers activity could be the negation. Capitalism is negated by revolution.





I don't understand why communism isn't the negation of capitalism, especially since that's the terms in which it's defined.


But communism doesn't exist, and so can't be a 'counter-thesis' / 'antithesis' until capitalism has first been negated.





Is the revolution itself the negation of capitalism?


I would say so.





In that case, the activity of negation (destroying something, e.g.) is being substituted for the concrete negation itself.


I don't understand what you mean here.





(edit: In fact, in Schweickart's critique of ParEcon, he says something similar, that ParEcon creators are forgetting to think dialectically.)

(It just seems that way to me. I don't really care for diamat or Hegelian "logic" though it is fun to read about and consider as a metaphor. If anything, I think dialectical idealism could have some truth to it (because people are able to consciously react against the past via movements or politics), but that's it.)

[ckaihatsu]

Well, then there is no vision for the future except a negative one.


You don't have to interpret 'negation' as being *negative* (in quality) -- maybe think of it more *mathematically*, as an 'inverse' -- and therefore *nullifying* -- to what presently exists.

[argeiphontes]

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against labor credits, that seems to be a realistic way of handling things.

Also, I'm only arguing against diamat for fun, I don't believe in it so have no vested interest in it.



But communism doesn't exist, and so can't be a 'counter-thesis' / 'antithesis' until capitalism has first been negated.
I just meant that, once it existed it would be the antithesis stage. Now, it's merely the idea of what the negation would be.



I don't understand what you mean here.I just meant that, revolution is not a socioeconomic system, it's the tearing down of the existing one. It's the act of negation. But wouldn't diamat require an actually existing stage, like capitalism, to serve as the negation? For example, like Christ and anti-Christ, both are really existing people (just as an example, I don't believe this of course.)

For example, take this progression: money in the bank -> money kept by individuals -> money pooled in collective bank. The destruction of the original bank isn't really the negation of the bank. It's the anti-bank (the mattress) that's the negation, as a thing being on the same level of existence as the bank.

edit: In dialectical idealism, ideas themselves are negated, but the negation of an idea is still an idea. So the negation of an existent should still be an existent.

(I'm probably missing something crucial though.)

edit2: Otherwise, an idea could be the negation of something material, couldn't it? The door would be open.

[ckaihatsu]

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against labor credits, that seems to be a realistic way of handling things.


Okay.





Also, I'm only arguing against diamat for fun, I don't believe in it so have no vested interest in it.


It's a cognitive tool, like 'complexity'....


Complexity and dialectics

www.revleft.com/vb/complexity-and-dialectics-t181977/index.html





But communism doesn't exist, and so can't be a 'counter-thesis' / 'antithesis' until capitalism has first been negated.





I just meant that, once it existed it would be the antithesis stage.


It's for reasons of time / time-frame -- 'communism' can't serve as a *counter* to capitalism if it doesn't yet exist. I think of it as being more of a 'synthesis' that *emerges*.





Now, it's merely the idea of what the negation would be.


Again, I'll posit the (ongoing) working class struggle to be the *negation*, and 'communism' to be the resulting 'synthesis', from the annihilation of capitalism and struggle.





I don't understand what you mean here.





I just meant that, revolution is not a socioeconomic system, it's the tearing down of the existing one. It's the act of negation.


Yes, agreed.





But wouldn't diamat require an actually existing stage, like capitalism, to serve as the negation?


My understanding would say 'no' here.





For example, like Christ and anti-Christ, both are really existing people (just as an example, I don't believe this of course.)

For example, take this progression: money in the bank -> money kept by individuals -> money pooled in collective bank. The destruction of the original bank isn't really the negation of the bank. It's the anti-bank (the mattress) that's the negation, as a thing being on the same level of existence as the bank.


Sure -- I'd agree here.





edit: In dialectical idealism, ideas themselves are negated, but the negation of an idea is still an idea. So the negation of an existent should still be an existent.

(I'm probably missing something crucial though.)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

How does a "leap of faith" square with historical materialism? (edit: or the human psychology of survival and resource acquisition. Nobody really expects Jesus to provide their daily bread.) I don't quite understand.

And this warrants another thread. Continued here. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-you-do-t184363/index.html?p=2680334#post2680334)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Exactly. That's why it's free of any positive substance. I see this as a weakness.

Those changes weren't subject to any kind of conscious planning but arose organically. The way I see it, I'd rather not wait around for the next social stage to develop. Otherwise, communism is just a nice academic theory about a prediction for the future and not a prescription for injecting change into the socioeconomic system.

See, I'd read what you're proposing as precisely "waiting around" - tinkering with the dynamics of capitalism by "conscious planning", rather than positing the possibility of violent rupture. As far as I'm concerned, Marxism remains academic so long as it remains "practical" - proposing impossible "solutions" to the immediate problems of capital that are in fact the constitutive nature of capital itself.


Well, then there is no vision for the future except a negative one.

You say the same here, of course:


Just redefining them as imaginative utopias doesn't really change my mind. I can say that the corporate structure was at first an imaginative utopia, but that doesn't mean that lawyers and politicians didn't have a concrete plan for how it would limit liability. And there it is, lording over all of us.

The starting point is precisely negative - the abolition of personal liability for the activity of capital. This can be embarked on (the beginnings of the corporation) in terms of practical "positive" projects, but this isn't a totalizing vision of the functioning of modern fincialialized corporatism and technocracy, and in fact, is quite modest.

So, again:


Actually, it seems to me that that nascent society existed in the town life and commerce of the burghers. Also, as you said it was an organic development and hence required no schematic.

Just as the communist project develops out of the socialization of production - the preconditions for communism are present, and what is lacking is not a "communist plan for the future" or a positive communist project (M. Kaihatsu has one on display!), but a concrete realization of negativity in communist acts.

[argeiphontes]

See, I'd read what you're proposing as precisely "waiting around" - tinkering with the dynamics of capitalism by "conscious planning", rather than positing the possibility of violent rupture. As far as I'm concerned, Marxism remains academic so long as it remains "practical" - proposing impossible "solutions" to the immediate problems of capital that are in fact the constitutive nature of capital itself.

I really have no argument against that kind of thinking. I've stated my reasons, we just seem to irreconcilably disagree.

Anyway, I think diamat should also be discussed in its own thread, if at all. Sorry for going off topic.

[argeiphontes]

(
@ckaihatsu (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162): Oops. It seems Marx thought that capitalism was the antithesis of primitive communism, with the future communism being the synthesis. That makes more sense.
)

[ckaihatsu]

(
@ckaihatsu (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162): Oops. It seems Marx thought that capitalism was the antithesis of primitive communism, with the future communism being the synthesis. That makes more sense.
)


Okay, glad you fact-checked it -- I was going by my own reasoning, so it's good to see it clarified there.

I don't have any stickers to pass out, but feel free to mention the 'communist supply & demand' model wherever and whenever you think it might be appropriate -- another cognitive tool, if you will.

[AmilcarCabral]

Hi, argeiphontes: Good point about realism and the real world. You know I would like in the near future for the poor and low-wage working class of USA to join leftist parties and to help those parties rise to US government, either by a mix of voting and at the same time boycottying the elections because we all know that if about 70% of US voting population votes for communist parties, Democrats and Republicans would still win elections.

So I would like a workers-dictatorship in the near future, with even Disney World, vacation cruises, movie theaters and other entertainments and pleasures nationalized so that american poor people can have a happier life here on earth before they die.

But we all know that won't happen because poor americans and the low-wage working class of USA is too mind-controlled and too right-wing right now at this very moment. And many ultra-leftists have an *all or nothing* worldview in which it's either an ultra-right leftist party rising to The White House, or Democrats and Republicans

Now, I realize that the leftist parties that are center-leftists like The Green Party, and other centrist-leftist are no solution either. But the marxist radical left of America will have find a right balance between not being too perfectionist too utopian, too unrealizable and too center-leftist, too bourgeoise-liberal



My opinion on the matter is that far leftism is a quasi-religion. Like "heaven", the goal is completely indeterminate, so there is nothing positive to justify any kind of action, and everybody can focus on refining the critique of capitalism. Also, being indeterminate allows it to encompass everybody's dreams of a better future so nothing is left out. It's a land of milk and honey where everybody is happy. The only thing that's missing is eternal life, but I suppose there are people who have a lot of hubris about technology, so that's not out of the question either. In any case, the properties of a future society are only sketched out based on them being not-capitalism.

If society were really being used as a starting point to see what possibilities develop, then why doesn't anybody support market socialism, which is completely realistic? Instead, everybody insists on the utopian dream of eliminating commerce, which has been with us as long as history and predates capitalism. It's all or nothing, so we are left with nothing.

So, yes, it is indeed a question of being realistic. It seems to me that claiming that the people with plans, or who are trying to articulate them, are the utopian ones is a complete reversal of any meaning of "utopian".

You can't expect anybody to act on the basis of a critique alone. Smash capitalism, but what's the alternative? Smash the state, but how are you going to avoid primitive anarchy? Those things really exist and have the force of objectivity about them, as opposed to saying "Uh, I dunno. Let's just smash it and see." Nobody is going to struggle for that, and rightly so, because there is nothing to struggle for, not merely against.

[Sharia Lawn]

Lenin said it pretty well in State and Revolution.

"There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he invented or imagined a 'new society.' No, he studied the birth of the new society from the old, the forms of transition from the latter to the former as a natural historical process. He examined the actual experience of the mass proletarian movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it. He 'learned' from the Commune, like all the great revolutionary thinkers who were not afraid to learn from the experience of the great movements of the oppressed classes, and who never preached pedantic 'sermons.'
Marx from Critique of the Gotha Program.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society not as it has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect economically, morally and intellectually still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."In essence, it is idealistic to ask for, or attempt to answer the question of, what a communist society will look like in any respect because it implies that history is made by humans striving to reach preconceived targets through conscious ambition toward them or vision of them. Historical developments are not dictated in this way anymore than water comes into existence through wishes and imagination, i.e. they are the product of material processes.

Therefore, we can only talk about communism in the way that we can analyze its birth from the existing society, or interpret the ways in which capitalism has created the conditions that make socialism a material possibility. The evolution and advancement of the productive forces such as the creation of modern industry, technology, and most of all the proletariat take precedence over the world that utopians have created in their heads.

The human mind is a vast thing, and the things it is capable of conceiving of knows no bounds - certainly not the bounds of material reality. Just because we are capable of imagining new forms of social organization, or even translating those conceptions into written arguments, doesn't make them applicable to the world as it is.

Capitalism's course of evolution has brought into existence the instruments of its own doom, and these instruments speak the language of class struggle, not utopia.

[Remus Bleys]

I highly doubt communism will incorporate "democracy."
I have no concrete, provable idea what communism will look like, but from my reading I doubt that it will be organized in some localist direct democracy hippie crap.

The state will not exist, instead there will be an "administration of things." A highly centralized economy will be necessary, in order to keep a more or less equal setting throughout the world.
I believe this administrative body will probably be formed from something analogous to worker councils, and that these councils and workers will have huge oversight, with the ability to overturn things.
Democracy as a principle is shit, as the entire thing is a logical fallacy, argumentum ad populum; and we honestly have no business fetishizing it. So, the administration of things will consist of rotating managerial responsibilities among eligible people. On a local and global scale, oversight bodies will be established consisting of both appointed individuals (judging by their merits) and elected officials, both subject to recall, and the difference between the workers (manual and intellectual) abolished (to each according to his need) eliminating the bureaucracy in this administration of things.

I am not denying that I could be wrong, and this is ultimately useless, as we have no idea what communism will be. This is a rough guesstimate on what I think the administration of things communism will look like.

[human strike]

I notice that a lot of the threads in the learning section are questions about details of a future communist society.

Now, I always have a problem when trying to answer these questions, which is simply: I don't know. I can tell you what the root of the problems of capitalism is, and therefore, what a socialist society needs to be based on. I can tell you how certain issues have been resolved historically in actually existing socialist societies. But I don't know what communist society will look like in what not unlikely is still a 1000 years from now. There are too many unknown variables in the equation, and I don't like telling fairy tales.

What is your opinion on that matter?

1,000 years? I'm not waiting that long. I'm not interested in discussions of what communism will be. Communism as the movement that abolishes the present state of things is already here and as such we should talk about it in the present tense, not as some future state of affairs to be established.