Generalising And Making It More Accessiable

[Scott M]

at present i am currently reading the mans biography and it is fascinating. the only problem is, that i have very little conceptions of political ideas, or indeed their aims.

i was wondering if someone could perhaps give me a run through of the political ideologies.

i.e marxism - definition and main purposes/ideas

communism - same as above.

coming from scotland, i am a bit ignorant to foreign governmental policies, so if you could perhaps keep any references to an understandable level.

thanks

scott

[Scott M]

i found a link on one of the other posts entitled difference which details what im looking for.

i apologise, if this display of ignorance has offended or just in general pissed people off, but hey...we all have to start somewhere.

scott

[Monty Cantsin]

you havent pissed any one off. we're all here to learn something new.

[Essential Insignificance]

Briefly;

Communism is a social system organized in way, which property is held in common by all members of the community, rather then being owned privately by individuals -- like in contemporary times. The term has become, in the course of history, associated with Karl Marx (the most comprehensible theoretician to date, who gave the communist movement a "scientific basis").

Marx himself used the term to denote the "revolutionary movement" which would/will emancipate the working class from the tyranny of capital. Marx thought that it was totally premature to define the social arrangements which this movement would "create".

Marxism, to define accurately is very troublesome, so I shall only try to give an graspable account of Marxism.

For Marx the "ultimate tendency" of history is the Promethean drive of the human species to develop it's essential human powers -- it's powers of production.

Engel (Marx's collaborator) once said something to the effect that mankind must eat, drink, find shelter and warmth and clothing -- the basic ingredients of life, before he can think about religion, philosophy, morality, etc ,and all other intellectual enquires. This was the general tenet of the materialist concept of history.

Under the capitalist mode of production, however, these productive powers, and the complete complex of human co-operation, has for the first time in human history grown far enough to put within the reach of human beings themselves the collective, rational, control, self-determined of the social form of their production.

But human beings under capitalism are "alienated" and "estranged" because of the unfair capitalist relation, dispossessing the vast sum of producers and subjecting them to the form of social production and the market mechanisms.

The historic "mission" of the proletariat, however, is to actualize the capacities for human freedom which the capitalist mode of production has put with our reach, by abolishing class society.

According to Marx and his "materialist conception" of history -- the objectives of class movements are determined by the set of production relations, which the class is in a position to establish and defend. This, therefore, implies that historically conscious revolutionaries should not precede by setting "utopian" goals for themselves and searching around for tools to use them -- at any expense!

I hope that helped. :D