Help me respond...

[bootleg42]

Ok, I'm having an argument with someone in school and he claims that the "dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie" leads to what we know as a "free western society" today and that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" leads to Stalinist regimes like in North Korea and Russia.

The reason the person used the term "dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie" is because I used it first to describe today's United States of America.

Now I responded by saying that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was not carried out well in Russia in that it was not from the "bottom-up" and that the breaucracy basically gave Stalin his power and ruined everything.

He's going to respond in class but I want advice from some of you here (PLEASE no anarchists, just the Marxists, not that I hate anarchists but I need a marxist view of this, love to all my fellow comrades and revolutionaries :D ).

I want two things:

1. He uses the term "free western society". This term gives me a headache because I know it's bull shit. How can I make him feel stupid for using that term?? How can I destroy that term and prove it wrong and make him feel stupid???

2. Are there any stronger arguments supporting the dictatorship of the proletariat OR at least a good argument of communism against a "free western society"??? Please explain.

Be kind, I'm a noob :) :hammer: .

[La Comédie Noire]

1. He uses the term "free western society". This term gives me a headache because I know it's bull shit. How can I make him feel stupid for using that term?? How can I destroy that term and prove it wrong and make him feel stupid???

The only reason we here in the west live so good is because we exploit workers of the third world nations. By paying them shit wages we are allowed to buy products for dirt cheap prices. We aren't "free" ,we are well fed and therefore of no concern to the ruling class.


2. Are there any stronger arguments supporting the dictatorship of the proletariat OR at least a good argument of communism against a "free western society"??? Please explain.

The D.O.P is the theoretical transitional period between capitalism and communism where the working class becomes the temporary ruling class.

The D.O.P allows the workers to have control over their own affairs. They get to decide their hours, wages, and working conditions as well as where the capital from their labour is used. It means workers self management.

Consumers, Petit Burgeoise, Burgeoise, will not be left out either. Through workers' councils and planning commites people will be able to voice their needs to the workers.

Organizing Labour in this way is far superior over the old method of private ownership in 3 ways.

1. Private property operates on scarcity, limited products & buying power, therefore It is unable to handle an abundance. People end up starving because ,thats right, someone produced to much food! Where as public means of production will allow the workers to produce enough for everyone without them needing buying power.

2. The D.O.P will allow direct democracy to take place In more aspects of life. Instead of voting for a candidate and his promises of reform you will be voting for what you eat, what you learn in school, and how you go about your career.

3. Since there will be no more contending Imperialist nations fighting for resources there will be no more horrid modern warfare.

oy someone will have to add on to that, I'm dead tired. Also try not to make sound as crazy utopianistic as I did.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 04:59 am
1. He uses the term "free western society". This term gives me a headache because I know it's bull shit. How can I make him feel stupid for using that term?? How can I destroy that term and prove it wrong and make him feel stupid???
Tell him that freedom is determined not only by political freedom, that is, freedom of expression and freedom of speech, but also by economic freedom. Economically "the west" is not free, it is a society based on wage-slavery, in which the majority of its inhabitants are exploited by the few.

"Freedom" without equality is worthless. For example a person owning publishing houses and printing presses has more of this "freedom" than a person living on minimum wage, because he has the ability to exercize his "freedom" on a much larger scale.


2. Are there any stronger arguments supporting the dictatorship of the proletariat OR at least a good argument of communism against a "free western society"??? Please explain.

The best argument is of course that workers should own the means of production, the places they work, themselves, because they work there, they live there, they make the place function, without them it wouldn't exist. There is no reason whatsoever that some boss should own it.

[BobKKKindle$]

1. He uses the term "free western society". This term gives me a headache because I know it's bull shit. How can I make him feel stupid for using that term?? How can I destroy that term and prove it wrong and make him feel stupid???

LZ has already suggested that freedom and equality are bound together and that the absence of the latter renders the former redundant; you can also contend, possibly as a reponse, that these 'free western' societies are not really democratic either, as the most important form of power - the ownership and control of economic resources - is still held by a minority who do not take the broader social consequences of their decisions into consideration, but are simply motivated by private profit. This means that we, as individuals, are unable to exercise real control over our lives, and those that do own economic resources (or the means of production in Marxist terminology) are actually able to control the delegates (senators etc) who are suppossed to be accountable to those that elected them, through campaign donations and appointements etc.

That is what is meant by the 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie' and it is in fact clear from voting participation rates that most people recognize the inherent flaws of bourgeois-democracy.


2. Are there any stronger arguments supporting the dictatorship of the proletariat OR at least a good argument of communism against a "free western society"??? Please explain.

Firstly, dispell the idea that communism is based on dictatorship or that the term 'dictatorship of the proletariat' entails an absence of democratic participation; in reference to the latter Marx explicitly advocated the Paris Commune as a model for this period of history, which, in comparison to other European states, was a progressive and democratic society. Other users have already discussed what the 'DoP' would actually mean in terms of ownership and power.

A question that is bound to come up is; what caused the degeneration of workers' power in the Soviet Union and the eventual collapse of 'socialist' countries. This is of course an issue of some controversy within the Left; I personally feel that this was not because of an inherent flaw within Communism, or Leninism as a method of political agitation, but arose because of the failure of the revolution to spread abroad. The disintegration of the working class during the civil war and the pressing need to industrialsie without the aid of other more advanced countries allowed for the development of a new ruling class within the party, the leader of which was Stalin, who destroyed workers' power in the later half of the 1920s.

The crimes that were committed by governments in these countries, those, are minor in comparison to the violence that is conducted on a daily basis as a result of capitalism's internal power dynamics - the invasion of occupation of other countries in order to control important materials and markets (imperialism) being the most obvious manifestion of this violence.

[UndergroundConnexion]

every month some topic like this comes up. i strongly believe that if you read some basic works of Marx or Engels you could be able to answer these arguments.
Read also some works by Fidel or Besancenot , might be easier to understand if Marx and Engels seem to difficult

[Raúl Duke]

He uses the term "free western society". This term gives me a headache because I know it's bull shit. How can I make him feel stupid for using that term?? How can I destroy that term and prove it wrong and make him feel stupid???

Use examples of events that contradict the "free" part. That won't be difficult. Also give examples of times when rights were/are taken away at the whim of the governments will. Basically, show what a dictatorship of capital/bourgeoisie means for the proletariat.


Are there any stronger arguments supporting the dictatorship of the proletariat OR at least a good argument of communism against a "free western society"??? Please explain.

Communism is a classless stateless society in which the economy is distributed according to "from each according to their abilities, to each according to need."

No more antagonistic class divisions would imply no exploitation. In our "free western society" the farce of everyone being equal before law, equal opportunity, etc don't mean shit unless there is real equality. We all know that those who have money and power can be treated differently by the law, have better opportunities,etc. Basically, this society priviledges the rich and the elite.

Like LZ said,real freedom needs real equality and vice versa to exist. Not only communists/anarchists/etc thought of this. I heard some 18th century liberal thinker made a comment that leads to that idea.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

this a general tip on debating...

think ahead on the argument that will be used against you (they dont often alter!) and think of a dramatic way to counter it.

on the free western world thing

You may be free, but your freedom depends intirley on the enslavment of others.

[Luís Henrique]

Arguing the "enslavement of others" is usually not a good argument. First, because if you are arguing the enslavement of others you are tacitly conceding that first world workers are "free". Second, because people are moved by what they see as their own interest, not by an abstract sence of justice.

Ask him how much time he plans to spend "being free" at someone else's business. Eleven months a year? Five days a week? Eight hours a day? Plus one hour for a hurried lunch in the firm or a fast-food restaurant conveniently near? Plus one or two hours going back and fro? Then when will he be free? At sleep? At bath? While pooping?

Or perhaps he thinks he is going to be "free" during his work? Free to make the same silly things day after day? Or to free to be fired if he gets tired of such tasks?

Luís Henrique

[Demogorgon]

Well you can point out what happens whenever the bourgoisie see any threat to themselves (Pinochet, Franco etc) or point out that the more tempered a capitalist system is by social democracy the more free the people tend to be. That obviously doesn't work as an argument for Communism but it does tend to halt arguments about Capitalism leading to freedom.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This ever so 'reasonable' dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (if such it may be called) has 'freed' at least one million people in Iraq from having to bother breathing any more, just as has stolen their oil.

Plus, their 'humanistically-orientated' military spending (well over a trillion dollars a year world-wide) condemns at least 12 million children to death annually.

I could go on, but you get the picture.