Rambling thoughts

[shayanb]

Just read The Communist Manifesto and was struck by the passion and belief in universal unity. But the document struck me as dated and problematic.

Seems like Marx's premise, that class can be abolished is flawed. He said cavemen did not have classes. But it seems likely they did, not that any knowledge of the matter can be certain. One caveman might have had a bigger club by virtue of being stronger, or a better cave and so on. Seems to me like property will have always existed in some form thereby giving rise to groupism based on having and not having.

Another point I want to make is how dated the document is, most property today exists in virtual form and the means of production have moved on technologically and I don't know how collective ownership of the means of production of an online game (for example) would work.

I'm probably just rambling...I was hoping to find some sort of panacea in the Manifesto, but I just found fantasy. I just don't see how communism is actionable or even relevant today (don't think it's ultimate goals were ever actionable, only class struggle may have been). Maybe socialism is more actionable.

Okay, ramble over. Please feel free to critique what I said, I'm hoping I've missed something, to be honest.

[John Nada]

Just read The Communist Manifesto and was struck by the passion and belief in universal unity. But the document struck me as dated and problematic.The Communist Manifesto is important but not the be all end all of Marxism. For example many of the demands have occurred. There's central banks, progressive income taxes, public schools, ect. Though much of it is dated, Marx and Engels main point about capitalism is even more true. And they both elaborated on Marxism much more for the rest of their lives after 1848. Capital Vol 1-3 is Marx's masterpiece but admittedly tomes.
Seems like Marx's premise, that class can be abolished is flawed. He said cavemen did not have classes. But it seems likely they did, not that any knowledge of the matter can be certain. One caveman might have had a bigger club by virtue of being stronger, or a better cave and so on. Seems to me like property will have always existed in some form thereby giving rise to groupism based on having and not having.A cavewoman who's stronger than another caveman is not a class. Individual variations are not a million separate classes. Classes are defined by it relation to the means of production. For example a serf and lord, or a slave and master. That concept of an individual even owning their own club or cave to the exclusion of everyone else is a very recent modern capitalist concept. In hunter-gather societies it's not about the individual but the community. Those two cavepeople are not floating alone in space but were in a group. There was no ownership of land, no factories or stores, so no bases for there to be any classes at all.

Another point I want to make is how dated the document is, most property today exists in virtual form and the means of production have moved on technologically and I don't know how collective ownership of the means of production of an online game (for example) would work.Physical private property is still real. Whatever you used to typed that post was made in a factory, with raw material extracted from a mine and oilfields, processed in refineries and smelters, shipped on boats, unloaded, transported to a warehouse, and sold at a store. The proletariat did all this, with the bourgeoisie making a ton of money off the workers each step of the way, by doing relatively nothing other than own the property the workers labor in.

Video games will be free. Collective ownership of the video game industry means it's everyone's, and not a few owners of the copyrights(which don't exist in hunter-gather societies).
I'm probably just rambling...I was hoping to find some sort of panacea in the Manifesto, but I just found fantasy. I just don't see how communism is actionable or even relevant today (don't think it's ultimate goals were ever actionable, only class struggle may have been). Maybe socialism is more actionable.

Okay, ramble over. Please feel free to critique what I said, I'm hoping I've missed something, to be honest.The proletariat has never been more numerous. Capitalism now spans the globe. Technology has grown to the point where a bourgeoisie is even more obsolete, and I'd say that class was obsolete 100 years ago. If anything, communism has become all the more necessary and possible.

Socialism is a synonym for communism. If you're using it the way Marxist-Leninists do, is supposed to be a phase working towards communism. If you mean like Sweden or something, that's not socialism at all. It's capitalism will some welfare to make things a little less shitty. And all those meager reforms in "socialist" European countries are being undone.

[Tim Cornelis]

Your idea of primitive society as "cavemen" waving giant clubs around, presumably clad in bear- or jaguar skin hanging from one shoulder, seems more informed by Nickelodean than by social sciences. In anthropology it's acknowledged that hunter-gatherer band society was virtually always egalitarian.

http://marxistpedia.mwzip.com/wiki/Primitive_communism

http://marxistpedia.mwzip.com/wiki/A_Marxist_FAQ#But_what_about_human_nature.3F

As for how an "online game" can be commonly owned. I don't see how this would be a problem. Producers produce a game using commonly owned tools and introduce it. Where does the problem come in? They will use computers and software or whatever, probably a building too, and those will be commonly owned and collectively administered.

[Armchair Partisan]

Just read The Communist Manifesto and was struck by the passion and belief in universal unity. But the document struck me as dated and problematic.

Seems like Marx's premise, that class can be abolished is flawed. He said cavemen did not have classes. But it seems likely they did, not that any knowledge of the matter can be certain. One caveman might have had a bigger club by virtue of being stronger, or a better cave and so on. Seems to me like property will have always existed in some form thereby giving rise to groupism based on having and not having.

Another point I want to make is how dated the document is, most property today exists in virtual form and the means of production have moved on technologically and I don't know how collective ownership of the means of production of an online game (for example) would work.

I'm probably just rambling...I was hoping to find some sort of panacea in the Manifesto, but I just found fantasy. I just don't see how communism is actionable or even relevant today (don't think it's ultimate goals were ever actionable, only class struggle may have been). Maybe socialism is more actionable.

Okay, ramble over. Please feel free to critique what I said, I'm hoping I've missed something, to be honest.


"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. existence."

First of all, the Communist Manifesto is not a blueprint. It's a framework. Marx has outlined the ideological basis of the proletarian revolution and the basic facts of capitalism that have remained unchanged ever since its creation: capital accumulation, extraction of surplus value, private property etc.

However, otherwise, Marxism is just a tool that you need to apply to the present situation at any time. (What exactly the correct action is, at any point, is a subject of debates and flamewars.) Proletarian revolution can solve anything; a large-scale workers' uprising cannot be stopped. The only question is, what will the proletarians do with their power? Will they squander it, will they appoint a new ruling class to make decisions in their name? Or will they succeed in building up communism?

When you say that communism is a "fantasy", you do not say that a communist society cannot work. You simply say that you do not think the proletarians are able to rule themselves, or even realize the necessity to do so. By extension (unless you are yourself bourgeois), you condemn yourself as well.

As for the nature of private property today, that's been tackled above.

[RedWorker]

Seems like Marx's premise, that class can be abolished is flawed. He said cavemen did not have classes. But it seems likely they did, not that any knowledge of the matter can be certain. One caveman might have had a bigger club by virtue of being stronger, or a better cave and so on. Seems to me like property will have always existed in some form thereby giving rise to groupism based on having and not having.

Class and property are social conditions. Social conditions are not reflections of biological behaviour. Your conception of primitive society is false. Rather than trying to prevail over the others, it was generally understood that cooperation was a key concept for achievement of each of the individual aims (such as survival). Even if some people are greedy and want and/or achieve more than others, that does not by itself create a class society. The idea that it directly descends from natural human behaviour is usually simply a justification for the ruling regime which serves to evade any actual understanding about its origins or function in modern society.


Another point I want to make is how dated the document is, most property today exists in virtual form and the means of production have moved on technologically and I don't know how collective ownership of the means of production of an online game (for example) would work.

We can have capitalism in video games, it makes for a fun aspect.


I'm probably just rambling...I was hoping to find some sort of panacea in the Manifesto, but I just found fantasy. I just don't see how communism is actionable or even relevant today (don't think it's ultimate goals were ever actionable, only class struggle may have been). Maybe socialism is more actionable.

You must mean that social democracy or social liberalism is more actionable. But why is communism not actionable?

[shayanb]

Thank you for your comments. I read up a bit about egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies and their societies sound impressive. But my contention is rooted in psychology and its inevitable impact on larger organising principles. Seems to me the gatherers who brought in poisonous berries that made everyone sick and successful hunters who led outings would self-actualize differently and be perceived differently. My point is there is ownership that comes along with skill and a certain status afforded to those who can and those who can't.

When this translates to production requiring more complex skill, the antagonisms truly start to manifest once society no longer exists under constant threat of scarcity and an overwhelming need to stick together (like hunter-gatherer societies).

The above being true, there is only one way in which to have a society that shares and cares, i.e., to have self-sacrificing individuals that genuinely cultivate an all-encompassing empathy, empathy of a nature that subsumes all ability-based and circumstancial division. The formation of classes seems to me a consequence of accumulation of property by the (initially) more capable at the cost of exclusion of those less able.

The reason I think communism can't work is that, in all seriousness, this kind of empathy is not a universal characteristic of the human species. Most people in modern society like labels to hide their inadequacies behind and capitalist society is all about exploiting this need. The notion of 'other' is bound to exist not just across communities but within them as well. And the pricks of conscience are easily put to rest when you receive validation from an in-group that affords you space to self-actualize.

Seems to me Marx over-estimated the extent and degree of empathy in humans and under-estimated the aspirational need. Communism may be inspiring to an oppressed section of the populace and produce a class war but I don't see how it's principles of organisation (post-struggle) are sustainable.

[Sewer Socialist]

The formation of classes seems to me a consequence of accumulation of property by the (initially) more capable at the cost of exclusion of those less able.

Actually, the rise of private property is linked to slavery. Pre-class societies shared the products of their labor communally, without regard to individual ability, taking care of their sick, and lesser-abled without a second thought. Slavery marks the first time in human history that people were entitled to ownership of the products of another, as a result of those actual people being owned; it is believed that originally those who were captured in battle were spared their lives by the victors and literally owed the remainder of their lives to them.


The reason I think communism can't work is that, in all seriousness, this kind of empathy is not a universal characteristic of the human species. Well, this is basically the "human nature" argument. Since you've recently read the Communist Manifesto recently, what do you think about Marx's argument that social relationships and attitudes do not remain the same throughout history, but the product of economic relations? These attitudes have certainly changed quite a bit throughout history. Our conception of property, personal freedom and privacy, gender relations, the family, the nation, religion - all these have been radically transformed over the years and adapted to economic circumstance. Morality and ethics are no different; they too, have been transformed over the years. Empathy survives in spite of capitalism; it thrives in communism.


The above being true, there is only one way in which to have a society that shares and cares, i.e., to have self-sacrificing individuals that genuinely cultivate an all-encompassing empathy, empathy of a nature that subsumes all ability-based and circumstancial division. This is actually already mostly the reality for most people on this planet - the proletariat produces far more than they consume, and are not directly attached to the products of their labor. This is one of the things Marx is thinking of when he says the bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers.

The Manifesto is not a very thorough work, of course. It was really just a piece of agitational material to promote a German Party in 1848. If you're interested in reading more about this, I recommend The German Ideology. It's much more detailed with Marx's conception of history, the idea that an economic base creates the social superstructure, and the ruling ideology - this idea of "human nature". You could also read Engels' Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, which has a pretty self-explanatory title.

[BIXX]

Your idea of primitive society as "cavemen" waving giant clubs around, presumably clad in bear- or jaguar skin hanging from one shoulder, seems more informed by Nickelodean than by social sciences.

Shit I guess I better stop being a primitivist.

And throw away all the clubs I've been gathering for my tribe.

And all the taxidermy bears I've been waiting to skin.

[Sewer Socialist]

I, myself, am partial to animal prints.

[Sibotic]

Obviously, actual strength is about the internal as such, and class is about externality. Capitalism is a weak society where people meekly serve the total capital, any 'sides' doing so and hence doing nothing particularly belligerent, and can hardly be given rise to by animosity. A club would quite possibly not be their personal creation, and if it was then you probably wouldn't have a class society anyway, just one where people liked hurting each other - evidently, anything other than exhibitionist stuff would probably be related to the overall society as so to speak a 'civil' matter, and would be a personal issue which in any case would better befit feudalism, which no longer exists and is barely supported, including by you, which is in any case only understood by Marxists. Like, did you get that from the Hunger Games, is that why Poor Taste is doing quite alright in this thread. In any case, ancient caste systems, such as they exist, aren't generally force-based, nor are they class systems most of the time so much as political forms of organisation. A society is that, if it's atomised, then it has to be capital or it wouldn't be an actually atomised society and would probably be communistic and with a social organisation with a sense of self-consciousness (not like, 'so I think how we should organise a society is to not organise it, that's how I think we should organise it' - which is some weird Stalinist thing in denial of their own mustaches or whatever, except more commie-sounding or whatever somehow, indeed it might be so except for the suicidal fantasies which seem like a problem) - unless people's conflicts wouldn't take part in a social context. That would be warfare between tribes or whatever - and at a certain point tribal organisation is going to come off as important, isn't it, and as soon as that exists it's not a class institution so much as an overactive dojo, and it doesn't not exist because humans aren't monads and states take on prominence before classes. Like, a tribe wants to make a case or has an issue with something, but then the 'state' allowed them off and this makes it a more complex process - they're probably not going to be pleased with that, there's already a social level and a social organisation which as it turns out has no basis for claims of class systems yet by itself.

Unless you mean 'groupie-ism' or something such as that, in which case prostitution is a theme in the Hunger Games, nonetheless that's mostly the movie, and at a certain point you have to ask why you would do that.

At the same time, I'm not sure if you've even read the document that extensively, the Manifesto is hardly marked primarily by 'passion' for 'universal unity' (more by polemicising against, well, stuff which sounds like that, by historical accounts, criticisms, analysis, a relatively dry tone much of the time, stuff that Marx wrote), indeed they would as time went on continue criticising socialists who focused on such terminology too much, not to mention that they hardly draw on such things and it seems more like you're saying something that you read somewhere about them or suchlike, which I think they got more than enough of from Mikhail Bakunin. Class struggle is hardly a belief in 'universal unity' as a principle, nor did Marx mention 'cavemen,' which is a paraphrase presumably with some agenda behind it in this case. Most of the historical, polemical and theoretical content of the Manifesto is hardly modified by time, and this just seems an excuse for you ignoring a superior theorist such as Marx, as if they couldn't generally come up with deeper sentences than those in your post with a flick of their pen.

I don't like your tone. In any case, I'm not sure if 'actionable' is the primary point here, if you agree with it then you're a utopian socialist, and Marx did criticise that extensively in his early works for being what it is. Obviously it's actionable, it's inevitable; capitalism by contrast is not actionable because it is stupid, transient and self-negating, and its only real action is to create communism.