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Would liberalism and conservatism still exist?
My question is: When full free access communism is achieved, would liberalism and conservatism still exist in a sense? I'd think not, but I guess I'm more starting this thread to attain better knowledge on liberalism and conservatism.
In a sense, maybe. There will probably be people who want to go back to the old way, but they'll be greatly outnumbered at that point. Liberals (in the American sense) support capitalism, so they would be put alongside the conservatives, because they are basically the same at that point.
On social issues, social conservatism would also be largely wiped out at that point.
Sometimes I gotta get down with my red self
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Liberals and conservatives would not be relevant. For one they are both liberals.
But they'd probably be relegated to the likes of feudalists and people who believe that we should go back to the roman slave state.
"I'm not interested in indulging whims from members of your faction."
Seeing as this is seen as acceptable by an admin, from here on out when I have a disagreement with someone I will be asking them to reference this. If you want an explanation of my views, too bad.
How are they both liberals? Typically liberals are the reformists, or the more socially deviant, and the conservatives are the ones that want to keep things the same or go back to some shitty/fucked up 'golden era' of some sort.
Liberalism was born in the "enlightenment", it has values such as private property, democracy, "justice", etc...
Both liberals and "conservatives" are concerned with these things but they have different viewpoints about them. They're just different tendencies within liberalism.
"I'm not interested in indulging whims from members of your faction."
Seeing as this is seen as acceptable by an admin, from here on out when I have a disagreement with someone I will be asking them to reference this. If you want an explanation of my views, too bad.
No of course not. The American view of Liberalism and Conservatism only exists in America, and is not really found in Europe (though, I hear that some of it is being "imported"). These ideologies are bourgeois ideologies, and via the lack of domination of the base by the bourgeoisie, the lack of capitalist domination of the superstructure, and the constant attacking of these ideologies by Communists will all ensure that will not - nay, cannot - exist in Communism, be this free access or lower phase.
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
To address the 'in a sense' part of the OP, what do you guys think of the possibility of conservatism being redefined in the context of full communism (i.e. conservatives being those that wish to maintain the current, communist society), and liberalism being redefined as... something?
"Let Racist ignorance be ended,
For respect makes the empires fall!"-Bragg's Internationale
Well Im not sure about liberalism but conservatism will always exist as its a relative ideology. A Romney supporter and a Russian communist in the late 1980's equally are both conservatives. The same could be said for progressives, yes their specific stances will change but the underlying reasoning and logic that defines the "ideology" will not.
If by conservative and liberal you were talking about the current American position I would argue that the material conditions that create such schools of thought would no longer be present (otherwise the attainment of communism wouldn't have happened) and accordingly they would only exist in the same way the serious monarchists in the west do; an internet novelty.
Of course the great transition and transformation of these conditions would certainly take a great deal of time and effort.
These ideologies would simply wither away over time.
☭ “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” - Karl Marx ☭
There wouldn't be liberals and conservatives and a political spectrum the way there are today, just people with different opinions.
Ideology is opportunistic teleology, created by socio-economic relations (the whole Base-Superstructure thingy, you get what I mean). These relations wouldn't exist in full blown communism anymore. So reasoning from a marxist point of view, I don't believe that ideologies would exist.
La dialectique, peut-elle casser des briques?
Ideologies in general would disappear. Ideological emerged from capitalism in relation to capital, how to facilitate it, how to manage it, or sometimes how to deconstruct it (communism). In communism, where no abstracted forms of decision-making exist, ideologies serve no purpose.
pew pew pew
There would be no "Liberals" and "Conservatives" but there will probably always be those who press for progress in society (not implying the Liberals in the modern American sense actually genuinely do this) and those that seek to stagnate or regress society.
If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom there is a chance to contribute to making a better world.
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!
In the context of the revolution both liberals and conservatives would be reactionaries - wanting to turn back to an earlier form of society. In our current society, perhaps there are people who genuinely want it to be the middle ages again (probably not to be a peasant and die of TB at the age of 25 however) and maybe there would be in the socialist society of the future, but ultimately, there is a class basis to ideology, and I can't see the argument 'hey! I think it would be better if you lot all gave up being free and came to work for me, while I get fat from your labour!' being very persuasive. Approximately the same level of persuasive as asking freed slaves to go and work for nothing for their former masters would have been in post-Civil War USA.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
This is a valid question to begin with, since a post-capitalist social order would still be a *material* one, with collective decisions to-be-made over material potentials.
So, for instance, once capitalism is overthrown, the people of the world might decide that a good long 'rest' is in order, and that some time could be taken to *explore* the unfolding of the new society -- this would equate to a mass turn towards leisure, with only a basic liberated-labor force tasked to the regular maintenance and upkeep of sufficient, humane conditions for all.
In material terms this would be a certain *stasis*, since more efforts *could* be directed towards technological- and/or humanities-oriented projects, but aren't.
Or -- perhaps more efficiencies could be realized in that context if there were more political-administrative efforts to organize liberated labor at greater scales, for larger projects. But such potentials go unrealized due to that shift towards leisure and mere maintenance.
[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified
Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=167
Yeah, there will still be contrarians who imagine that the system is making people soft or eroding values. I can't imagine that ever going away, even in an obviously superior society.
I love what Ckaihatsu said based off our two posts in this thread, he's a very educational user and it is truly wonderful to have him here. (he?)
To me 'conservatives' under full communism would be the people who would want to maintain the same social orders, to negate progress, and/or to regress society to a previous era. Perhaps these conservatives would be pro-capitalist protesters (elderly people I'm assuming...) who want there beloved America back or whatever nation or shitty construction they favor. The liberals would be the more progressive individuals, or those who are perfectly fine with an amorphous and constantly changing society, people who'd be more liberatarian maybe. I'm trying to think of how they can be redefined in some way.
Assuming a DotP is created the liberals would be the ones who would want to demolish the state immediately after it is unnecessary for it to exist, and the conservatives may want to maintain party rule and strengthen the power of the state. Perhaps the conservatives would be in power and persecute those in the way of the brutal state.
full communism, by the way, is a meme, not a phase in social development of the socialist mode of production.
pew pew pew
Couldn't it be said that the libertarian socialists are the liberals per se; the authoritarian socialists the conservatives? One seeks destruction of the state, and the other seeks to reform it, so as to transition in a longer more protracted manner?
You could, but that wouldn't be liberalism or conservativism - the question there would be 'what would happen to different socialist strands under communism'.
That's pretty unpredictable, as if you're talking about the what would happen in the historical period during the transition from socialism to communism following the end of global capitalism, then we can't predict because we don't know the precise mechanics of what that transition would look like.
If we're talking about different political opinions once 'full' communism has already been established, then there would be differences of opinions, but as ckaihatsu has pointed out, it would largely take the form of differences over how to allocate resources.
"Even from the single example I mentioned we may see why we should not be afraid of discussions, of the clash of ideas, why we should not confine self-criticism to a few personal things, why we should develop it on a still wider scale." -Enver Hoxha
